Advocacy Program for Health Providers with HIV

The American Association of Physicians for Human Rights (AAPHR), a national organization of gay and lesbian physicians, is sponsoring an effort to protect the rights and livelihoods of doctors and other health workers from proposals requiring disclosure of their HIV status. The "Medical Expertise Retention Program, The National Program for Physicians With HIV Disease" is directed by attorney Ben Schatz, who will assist and advocate on behalf of seropositive health workers.

Recently, alarm bells have been clanging in the media and professional organizations over allegations that patients are at risk for contracting "the AIDS virus" when they are under the care of a dentist or physician with HIV. Ironically, many physicians with HIV have had to compensate for years of their colleague's AIDS phobia by providing more than their share of the care required by thousands of Americans with HIV.

For information about AAPHR's program, or to make a tax- deductible contribution, interested persons can call 415/864- 0408.

Comment

This is a crucial civil rights issue for anyone involved in the AIDS epidemic. The concern voiced for the "safety of the patient" echoes the older "safety of the physician" campaigns waged against seropositive patients. In both situations the issue of safety has been finessed to serve other agendas.

Health workers should be observing "universal" blood and body fluid precautions with all of their patients, for their own safety and that of their patients' as well. If universal precautions are observed, there remains no compelling reason to compromise the privacy of health workers, or their patients, with HIV. Hepatitis and other serious infections have amounted to a far greater risk than HIV in the healthcare setting. But HIV has garnered far more hysteria -- a dangerous mismatch between perception and reality.

If alarmists achieve their goals, then physicians, dentists and nurses will be discriminated against openly, and no other sector of the workforce or general population would be exempt from similar bias. Many competent care-givers could be removed from their positions unfairly and needlessly, and the loss of those experienced in caring for HIV would impoverish the quality of medicine generally for everyone needing HIV care.



HIV Immigration: New Threat, AIDS Organizations Needed

by John S. James

As reported previously in AIDS TREATMENT NEWS, the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services recommended that HIV -- along with all other diseases except active tuberculosis -- be dropped as grounds for excluding visitors and immigrants from the United States. But conservative Republicans are now pressuring President Bush to overrule the HHS recommendation and keep HIV as grounds for exclusion, at least for permanent immigrants.

Apparently the argument this time is avoiding medical- care costs to the government, rather than fear of contagion. Our understanding is that existing law already allows immigrants to be excluded if they are likely to require government expense. The real issue, then, is whether HIV should be singled out from all other diseases for automatic exclusion not based on public- health requirements.

A hundred and fifty organizations have already signed an April 16 consensus letter supporting the recommendation of HHS that HIV not be used to bar U. S. entry by visitors or immigrants. Signers include the American Public Health Association, United States Conference of Mayors, American Red Cross, National Hemophilia Foundation, American Foundation for AIDS Research, San Francisco Department of Public Health, American Jewish Committee, AIDS Action Council, San Francisco AIDS Foundation, and the Eighth International Conference on AIDS.

The letter has already been submitted to Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan, but an addendum with other signers is being prepared. If your AIDS, medical, or other organization could sign this letter, contact Dana Van Gorder, Harvard AIDS Institute/Eighth International Conference on AIDS, 617/495-2318, or 617/495-2863 (fax).