HIV Travel Law Change Brings Peace of Mind

On January 4, 2010, the U.S. will end its ban on HIV-positive immigrants. "The ban's repeal comes after years of lobbying by HIV and AIDS activists and public health leaders who have argued that the ban has no scientific basis. In 1987, when scientists were still exploring the transmission of HIV, U.S. health officials added HIV/AIDS to the list of communicable diseases that disqualified a person from entering the U.S." The travel ban has become a relic of an era in which policy was dictated by fear rather than by science, and now the science has caught up," said Dr. Mark Kline, internationally recognized leader in pediatric HIV/AIDS and chair of pediatrics at the Baylor College of Medicine and physician-in-chief at Texas Children's Hospital.