HIV Bar Stripped from Immigration Law

Bush has signed a bill that strips HIV from the list of "communicable diseases of public health significance" for which an alien can be barred admission to the US.

Some perspective please.

I did a definition search and do not understand why HIV is not "communicable." Sure, the means by which the virus is communicated are limited. However, HIV infection, particularly among African Americans and sexual minorities continues to exact an horrific toll.

Perhaps the more scientifically-minded among us can weigh in on the technical difference that makes leprosy a "communicable disease of public health significance" and HIV not.

What I am about to say will sound cold. I don't mean it to be; but I am a nationalist at heart and care about American interests much more than unassociated foreign interests.

The US may well have an interest in reducing the costs of HIV drug treatments to populations in other countries. We certainly have an interest in coming up with better treatments for our own people. I don't see any interest in bringing HIV infected persons to the US.

HIV is almost universally fatal. While the inevitable can be delayed with some extremely expensive medical treatment, the outcome is set from the moment that the virus begins its replication.

The article suggests that the bar doesn't matter anyway because there are so many persons who came here illegally to obtain treatment in the US. Even if this is true for persons from Mexico, the assertion doesn't take into account visas issued to persons from developing countries which are now subject to the bar.

Frankly, cold though it may be, I think being HIV positive, even if due to no fault of one's own, should be a bar to admission to the US.