KERRY/SMITH: America's unfair HIV/AIDS policy

To Sen. John Kerry and Sen. Gordon Smith: Your acknowledgement of the need for the U.S. to lift the HIV/AIDS ban on travel and immigration is more crucial to the world than we seem to think about; thank you. Not only because we should consider HIV as any other infectious disease, but because lifting the ban would aid in the deconstruction of the stigma imposed upon people living with AIDS. If the U.S continues to prohibit HIV positive people from entering, the world’s notion of people living with AIDS as dirty, contaminated, and to blame for their infection would be perpetuated. If we don’t let them in, we would be implying that they could infect us through mere co-existence. Then, is it fair to suggest that HIV positive Americans are free to leave the country and potentially infect everyone else around the world? If so, we would be denying all of the other forces around HIV/AIDS.