Muted progress: 40 years after the start of the AIDS epidemic, HIV remains criminalized

In 1981, when UCLA physicians reported the first cases of what was described as “newly acquired immunodeficiency” — the disease now known as AIDS — contracting the virus was a virtual death sentence. Over the next four decades, research into the disease has made major advances that have thankfully made it possible to live a healthy life with HIV.However, as much as the medical treatment has progressed, laws that criminalize a person based on their HIV-positive status remain on the books across the United States and continue to be enforced in ways that discriminate, said Nathan Cisneros, the primary HIV criminalization analyst at the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law.Cisneros defines HIV criminalization as laws that categorize otherwise legal conduct as crimes, or that increase punishments based solely on a person ’s HIV-positive status. In his research, Cisneros applies the lens of quantitative social science to the impact of HIV criminalization laws on people living with HIV, or PLWH.For example, in Tennessee prostitution is a misdemeanor offense if a person is HIV-negative, but a felony if the person knows that they are positive. Moreover, Tennessee ’s HIV criminal law requires mandatory sex offender registry following a conviction, and since 2010 has been classified as a “violent sex offense”, so registration is for life.Cisneros said these outdated laws that don ’t reflect medical advances available today that dramatically reduce and often elimina...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news