BOSTON - A panel of four women put to rest the myth that HIV/AIDS is only an issue for underdeveloped nations Saturday at the American Bar Association (ABA) Midyear meeting.
President Obama expressed his commitment to creating a National HIV/AIDS strategy in 2007. As part of that national plan, the panel outlined legal recommendations to address domestic HIV/AIDS prevention, equal access to care, and the guarantee of civil rights for HIV-positive people.
The specifics of a national strategy are now more imperative than ever with the number of domestic cases of HIV on the rise according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC). The Houston Chronicle blames former President Bush for the neglect of domestic HIV/AIDS.
“I’m passionate about domestic AIDS because the Bush administration neglected the issue,” said one panelist, Ravinia Hayes-Cozier. Cozier said she has high hopes that President Obama will not ignore the fact that 48 percent of those living with HIV/AIDS are black.
“It [national plan] requires us to come together from a federal agency perspective in a coordinated effort; it gives us not just numbers to try to accomplish, but a comprehensive approach to how to get to those numbers,” said Cozier.
The AIDS coordinating committee, who organized the panel discussion, believes that the current strategy of decentralizing authority to a local or statewide level is ineffective.
Though many stigmas about AIDS have already been addressed since the epidemic peaked in 1980, Catherine Hanssens, a panelist from New York, charged that much legislation has failed to actually secure the civil rights of those with HIV/AIDS.
“There is a lot of government accommodation of HIV stigma discrimination that President Obama could end with little more than the stroke of the executive pen,” said Hanssens. She recommended lifting the ban on HIV-positive immigrants and eliminating HIV status as a basis for exclusion of applicants to federal agencies, the military, and occupational training programs.
While some of the panel’s recommendations were simply a matter of enforcing existing legislation, many discriminatory regulations regarding health care workers with HIV are in need of thorough revision said Denise McWilliams. McWilliams’ gained experience on this particular topic from her former work as a litigator in a private practice specializing in healthcare. Now, she is the Director of Policy and Legal Affairs at the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts.
She claimed the CDC’s policy about health care employees conducting potentially “exposure-prone invasive procedures” has supported HIV discrimination and contributed to the stigma that HIV can be transmitted by casual contact. McWilliams suggested the CDC revise its policy to instead reflect the idea that “there is no measurable risk of HIV transmission posed by [HIV positive] health care workers,” a recommendation outlined by major civil rights groups in a To Do List for the New U.S. Administration’s First 100 days.
Cozier referred to statistics that illustrated the growing inadequacy of health care provided by the federal government for those most at risk of infection: low-income minorities.
With one in 30 black women diagnosed with HIV, Cozier asserted that minorities are unable to access the care they need due to insufficient federal funding.
She urged Congress to pass the Early Treatment for HIV act, which would make low-income individuals eligible for Medicaid benefits before they’re considered disabled.
Panelists listed other Medicaid revisions that they said could help prevent HIV/AIDS. For example, making routine HIV screening a Medicaid service would not only create more equal access to health care but also,aid in prevention. As of now, HIV screenings are considered an optional benefit that varies by state.
All three speakers made note of needle exchange programs, which have made progress in the effort to prevent HIV transmissions related to drug injection use according to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Yet a ban enacted in 1988 does not allow the federal funding of any syringe exchange programs. The Surgeon General published a paper on his evidence-based findings that scorrelate the efficacy of syringe exchange access programs to decreasing HIV infections, while simultaneously keeping more users in substance abuse treatment.
The long-term prevention technique of comprehensive sex education also arose during the question-and-answer session. The panel agreed that federal funding of abstinence-only-until-marriage education should be eliminated.
Andrew Novak, a Boston University third-year law student, attended the discussion to hear McWilliam’s thoughts on the domestic epidemic. Novak had done pro bono work for McWilliams in the past and is now specializes in AIDS in Africa. The panel’s focus on the domestic issue, despite the “typical media blitz on the global side” is what attracted him.
Cozier said had we implemented a national strategy 20 years ago to address the domestic issue, then, maybe the global HIV/AIDS epidemic wouldn’t be as grim.
