Obama to lift HIV entry ban soon

bbc ^

[darkside321]

The US is to end its 22-year ban on people with HIV entering the country, President Barack Obama has confirmed.

Mr Obama made the announcement as he extended funding for an act that provides HIV/Aids related health care.

"If we want to be the global leader in combating HIV/Aids, we need to act like it," Mr Obama said.

The US is one of only about a dozen countries barring entry on HIV status. The ban is expected to be lifted at the beginning of 2010.

'End the stigma'

Mr Obama confirmed the move as he signed the Ryan White HIV/Aids Treatment Extension Act.

Mr Obama said the entry ban had been "rooted in fear rather than fact".

He said: "We lead the world when it comes to helping stem the Aids pandemic - yet we are one of only a dozen countries that still bar people with HIV from entering our own country.

"On Monday, my administration will publish a final rule that eliminates the travel ban effective just after the New Year."

Mr Obama added: "It will also take an effort to end the stigma that has stopped people from getting tested, that has stopped people from facing their own illness and that has sped the spread of this disease for far too long."

The process to lift the ban had begun under the administration of George W Bush.

The Ryan White Act is named after a 13-year-old boy who contracted the virus via blood transfusion and helped educate Americans about the disease until his death in 1990 aged 18.

The act helps about 500,000 people, many on low incomes, by providing treatment and support.

HIV was added in 1987 to the list of diseases disqualifying people from entering the US.

[stephenjohnbanker]

“I am sick of paying for the behavior of a person who does knowingly dangerous actions, and then wants very expensive treatments to be paid for by everyone else.

Adding out of country infected people to that list makes it even more maddening.”

Maybe Done With Dems will foot the bill.

[Slump Tester]

"Are you still in the 1980’s mentality where you think you can get Aids by being around someone with AIDS."

No, but if we leave a bunch of them in, the fudgepackers and junkies among them will pass it on into our population. (DUH!)

And none of them will pay for their treatment, we will. (DUH-UH!)

And this treatment will prolong their life so they can infect more people and cost us even more. (DUH-UH-UH!)

And while I'm at it - you ended a question with a period instead of a question mark. (DUH-UH-UH-UH!)

[LuxMaker]

The new Emma Lazarus ideal: "Bring me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free of HIV!"

Change in bold.

[ZULU]

The normal reaction to this is: “IS HE OUT OF HIS MIND?”

No, he is quite sane.

The sinister plot of this foreign born national to destroy the land of Democracy and Free Enterprise from within, directed by the Saudi Oil Shieks and George Soros, spins on.

WHEN are Americans going to wake up and RECOGNIZE the Viper they are nusing in their bosom???????

[Soothesayer9]

“So the problem is just with healthcare....so deny them healthcare.”

- Yeah, and we see how that is working out for illegals.

[Leo Farnsworth]

“Why is it sickening? Are you still in the 1980’s mentality where you think you can get Aids by being around someone with AIDS.”

Jimmy Carter could have made the US AIDs free just by quarantining the FOUR known AIDs carriers (they were well known and on the cover of TIME magazine) but he did not.

GEEZ! Get a grip on reality or check out the drug forums on DU. These AIDSs folks will NOT stop having sex - they are promiscuous - how will this help the average American?

Let's hope they do not give blood....

[Doogle]

which is why Barry escapes on road trips all the time.

..the big bad desk in the oval office can't applaud

[Candor7]

Its not about stigma, its about protecting ourselves from the spread of HIV.

I swear, Obama is really on short time.

Wish the election was tommorrow.

One more decision to destroy the people instead of protecting them. The list is getting quite long.

[aSeattleConservative]

While you can’t help but empathize with people like Ryan White, who contracted HIV/AIDS through a blood transfusion, you have to look at the reason WHY young Ryan contracted it.

All major health organizations throughout the world “currently” refuse to allow MSM (men who have sex with men) to donate blood (it could be because homosexuals contract HIV at a rate 50 (FIFTY) times higher than other groups).

Yeah right B. Hussein Obama, let’s open up the borders to 500,000 infected people and add additonal stress to our healthcare system, not to mention allowing additional sexual deviants into our country to spread the dreaded disease.

[NautiNurse]

I find it funny everyone ignored the sentence that the process began under George W.

I find it funny that Bush is blamed for another government debacle under the TOTUS administration.

I can't fathom how you expect HIV+ patients to enter this country without also expecting them to feast upon ObamaCare on our dime.

Find me one paragraph in any of the liberal ObamaCare bills that will prevent people with HIV from soaking U.S. taxpayers for their health care costs. Once you have done that, then tell me three reasons an HIV+ person would come to this country (excluding health care benefits).

[toldyou]

I knew a homosexual man from PA who complained of the distance he had to drive to go to work at an airport in NJ. I asked him why he didn’t transfer to Philadelphia. He replied that the disability benefits were much better in NJ. Go figure what he meant.

We will be paying for their health care plus their disability benefits.

[darkside321]

yeah but i still think the actual ban simply hasn´t protected anyone. because as long as someone is not dumb enought to say that he/she has HIV when entering the country
no one will ever notice it.

[stephenjohnbanker]

“WHEN are Americans going to wake up and RECOGNIZE the Viper they are nusing in their bosom???????”

Americans are intellectually lazy, and this time it cost us BIG TIME.

[bustinchops]

When are we going to put a stop to this? When? When? When? When? How much more of this are we going to put up with?

Here come the Haitians. Gawd, what a miserable group of people they are.

[NautiNurse]

i still think the actual ban simply hasn´t protected anyone.

I'll bet the ban has heretofore prevented state sponsored purchases of one-way tickets to the U.S. for a population that puts a large dent into a nation's single payer health care budget.

[guitarplayer1953]

So blame Bush?

[rwfromkansas]

Perhaps they want to see the world before they die.

I’m not blaming Bush either, just saying it is not all Obama.

[Kimberly GG]

“Are you still in the 1980’s mentality where you think you can get Aids by being around someone with AIDS.”

LOL, you’d be surprised how uneducated and naive very smart people can be when it comes to understanding AIDs and homosexuality.

[AUH2O Repub]

If we treated AIDS like the contagious and life-threatening disease that it is, there would probably be fewer people dying from it.

---

And the way to do that would be by creating quarantined butt pirate colonies. The epidemic would be eliminated in one generation. If non-infected people wanted to visit with someone in the colonies they would be able to have no-contact visits or test negative for HIV before they would be allowed back into normal society. A little draconian perhaps but it would save the non-infected homos along with the rest of society. Ah, if I were only King.....

[darkside321]

possible but on the other side. i have visited the US 2 times and no one ever asked me if i´m HIV positiv (wich i´m not :-) when i entered the US. So it looks like even when this ban has existed it was never only tried to enforce it.