Posted on 10/30/2009 7:13:20 PM PDT by TaxPayer2000
President Obama on Friday announced the end of a 22-year ban on travel to the United States by people who had tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS, fulfilling a promise he made to gay advocates and acting to eliminate a restriction he said was “rooted in fear rather than fact.”
At a White House ceremony, Mr. Obama announced that a rule canceling the ban would be published on Monday and would take effect after a routine 60-day waiting period. The president had promised to end the ban before the end of the year.
“If we want to be a global leader in combating H.I.V./AIDS, we need to act like it,” Mr. Obama said. “Now, we talk about reducing the stigma of this disease, yet we’ve treated a visitor living with it as a threat.”
The United States is one of only about a dozen countries that bar people who have H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS.
President George W. Bush started the process last year when he signed legislation, passed by Congress in July 2008, that repealed the statute on which the ban was based. But the ban remained in effect.
It was enacted in 1987 at a time of widespread fear that H.I.V. could be transmitted by physical or respiratory contact. The ban was further strengthened by Congress in 1993 as an amendment offered by Senator Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina.
Because of the restriction, no major international conference on the AIDS epidemic has been held in the United States since 1990. Public health officials here have long said there was no scientific or medical basis for the ban.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
the death of the innocent is ON HIS HANDS!!!
Well, this will certainly cut back on the health-care costs.
You know how cheap AIDS medication is...
So now anyone can come here and then GO TO THE HOSPITAL AND BE TREATED? WTF?
Man has no scientific education at all.
What’s next, TB? Ebola?
Oh, yeah. I almost forgot. US!
It seems only fair since he sat for 20 years in a church where the pastor taught AIDS was created and loosed upon the children of my Father in Heaven by the government of the United States of America ./sarc . Good grief .
Mad Cow disease is next.
I guarantee you won’t catch any of these people getting a welcoming reception in the White House! This POS is using every means possible to destroy us.
I listened to his speech about this. He said nothing. He said that more people would be aware and tested. It was a completely garbled message that used buzz word but had no coherent center.
Once the ban is lifted, foreigners applying to become residents in the United States will no longer be required to take a test for AIDS.
The bastard is doing EVERYTHING he can to bring us down, and he doing it all as fast as possible. This is all deliberate!
What’s a few more? He has the unborn, soldiers and now the citizens.
Whoever is making these decisions he should tell them he wants his soul back.
Next best thing to lifting Don’t Ask Don’t Tell for the gay lobby?......
[”“Stigma and exclusion are not a sound basis for immigration policy,” Ms. Tiven said.”]
By these criteria, terrorists and known criminals should be accepted as immigrants.
[Under the ban, United States health authorities have been required to list H.I.V. infection as a “communicable disease of public health significance.” ]
Aids is no longer a significant communicable disease?
[”prevented international AIDS researchers and activists from gathering at conferences here.” ]
How does disallowing visas for visitors with AIDS prevent foreign medical researchers from gathering at professional conferences in the U.S.? And why would one want to attract “activists” to any conference that concerns scientific research?
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Yassar Arafat visted the WH many times ,, being HIV+ never stopped him...
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