What do all these countries have in common?
Iraq, China, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Sudan, Qatar, Brunei, Oman, Moldova, Russia, Armenia, South Korea and the United States.
These are the only 13 countries in the world that completely ban incoming travel across their borders by HIV-positive travellers. The US finds itself in, shall we say, politically interesting company in that list.
Next question: Which one of these countries is considering lifting their 20-year travel ban on HIV-positive travellers? No, it's not the US. In fact, the US has just .
It's . A Chinese Health Department spokesman, Mao Qun'an, has even acknowledged that the rule was introduced at a time when people knew little about how HIV/Aids was spread. Ahead of this year's , it's worth remembering that people living with HIV continue to experience various forms of discrimination, legal and illegal, in many countries of the world. Will you be wearing a red ribbon on Saturday?
Comments
Europeans may have forgotten what national sovereignty is all about but there are still some countries that have vestiges of it and exercise what's left of it supposedly to protect their citizens from what their governments consider unacceptably dangerous people who might enter. It's not perfect, the US did allow all of the terrorists who hijacked the planes and crashed them into the WTC and Pentagon on 9-11-01 in legally and many other terrorist suspects at one time or another too. I'm sure there are other diseases people could carry which would not be allowed in such as ebola virus. Of course if they still are determined to get in, they could go to Mexico and pay the coyotes to get them across the border illegally in semi trucks or cars or take their chances crossing the Rio Grande and braving the Southwest desert. Why is this a problem? BTW, we do not have national health insurance, do not have HIV drugs available at prices granted the third world, and these people could become a burden to our already financially overtaxed medical system. Treatment for HIV in the US is still very expensive.
Even Europe is now having concerns about who it lets fly in airplanes and is going to demand certain information from passengers, a demand from the US government made of for passengers bound for the US the EU fought tooth and nail just a few months ago. But it's hard to understand how Britain could object to giving out any and all such information at this point....having just lost every vital piece of data on 25 million of its citizens on two computer discs in the last couple of weeks through sheer carelessness....or lax security and theft.
Mark, you'll be telling us all that HIV is the judgment of God next. I despair.
The other thing all these countries have in common is religious fundamentalism. They are connected. The religious fundamentalists, Christian and Muslim, have a lot in common. They detest gay people and regard HIV as God's judgment on gays. That's the underlying reason why they want to shut their airport doors to HIV+ travellers, because they see those travellers as gay or connected to a gay disease. This is bizarre but thats the world of religious fundamentalism for you.
Mark, would you mind explaining exactly what relation your post has to the subject in hand?
Are you suggesting anyone with HIV is likely to be an undercover terrorist?
Lets all grow up on the HIV thing. HIV is not a terminal illness anymore. Lots of great drugs and care. The US and thise other coutries need to wake up to that. Its not the plague. I have been positive for 3 years now and I'm healthy and no danger to any americans on holiday. When I travel there, I don't answer their questions truthfully about being HIV because it's not worth the hassle and im not going to help people discriminate against me. Dont worry mark, I'm not coming to get you!
I tried sending this posting once before but it didn't go through.;
Stephen Antrim #2
What's your problem, have you forgotten what sovereignty is or are you just jealous someone still has some? I do not hate homosexuals. I do not believe in god. I think it is unfortunate anyone has this disease no matter how they contracted it, through intravenous drug use, or heterosexual or homosexual sexual intercourse. I believe that my government is doing the right thing keeping infected people out of the country. There are a lot of other people it should keep out too, for my safety and that of the rest of our society. (They used to quarantine would be immigrants who had tuberculosis. With new antibiotic resistant strains appearing, that might just happen again.)
D Smyth #4
I am not suggesting someone who has HIV might be an undercover terrorist, just another source to spread the infection and another sink to obtain medical treatment at American taxpayer cost, something my government not only has a right but an obligation to prevent if that is the collective judgement of our society. If it isn't, we have the power to change it but so far, I have not heard any hew and cry to alter course. Why is that so hard to understand? Has the idea of a government protecting its own people as its first obligation become so alien to citizens of the EU because it's been so long since they've had it that way? This is all the more reason for the US to rejects Angela Merkel's laughable suggestion to President Bush earlier this year that the US join the EU. No thanks, we are perfectly happy just as we are.
Right.
So they'll be banning all smokers too, plus anyone with heart disease, cancer etc, etc...
As for a sink to obtain health care at cost to the American taxpayer, don't make me laugh. The minimal cost of the healthcare system in the U.S. to the taxpayer compared to what we spend in the UK ensuring free healthcare for all at the point of need, rather than for the elect few who can afford it blows holes in your argument.
If Bush was ever that concerned with saving your taxes war in Iraq would never have happened.
D. Smith #7
What do you know about the cost of medical care in the US? NOT ONE ROW OF BEANS. The US spends about 1/6 of its GDP on medical care, that's two trillion dollars, probably more than the entire GDP of Britain. A single night stay in a hospital for observation can cost thousands. Minor surgery can cost many thousands, even tens of thousands when you add in-hospital followup care. The average cost of medical insurance whether paid by an individual or an employer is around $6000 to $7000 per person per year. There are 40 million Americans without medical care but do you see people dying in the streets by the droves for lack of getting it and not receiving care? No, those who pay taxes and insurance pick up the cost for those who don't have insurance one way or another and that includes indigent illegal aliens... of which by the way there are believed to be 50,000 from Ireland alone in the US.
As a matter of fact, some of the state governments have been talking about bringing legal suits against the tobacco companies for the cost of treating diseases caused by smoking and paid for from the public tax revenue coffers.
No, Will; I won't be wearing a red ribbon again this year. I fear that another 'World Aids Day' will come and go with many people refusing to face up to the moral issue at the heart of the matter.
As we know, AIDS is passed on - in the main - by immoral sexual behaviour. The best way to avoid AIDS is to keep sexual activity within monogamous heterosexual marriage - as the Inventor of sex intended: and He desires nothing but our good.
Get me a ribbon which says that, and I will happily wear it!
I heard this comment from P Campbell being read out on Sunday Sequence today and when it said he is a minister in the congregational church it made my heart drop. How can anyone calling himself a christian speak so unlovingly, judgmentally and inaccurately about this health crisis. All you have done here MR Campbell is pour salt into the open wounds of people who are already hurting terribly. Shame on you.
Hi Sara,
The point I was making in the comment Will read out is that - while AIDS undoubtedly is a health crisis, it has an obvious moral dimension that no-one wants to talk about. (Even on today's programme, the discussion that followed avoided the issue and attacked the 'attitude' behind what I said!) Don't you think its time we faced up to reality?
All of us are sinners, and it is sin that causes people to hurt. I'm a minister because the Christian Gospel shows the way out of the consequences of our sin - through the Cross of Jesus Christ.
His approach to someone caught in sexual sin was 'Go and sin no more': if that priciple was applied to the AIDS crisis, the situation would change dramatically. I pray that it will.
Philip: I heard that comment from you on Sunday Sequence and it made my heart drop. Apparently you are a minister in the congregational church. I was raised in a congregational church and I left as soon as I reached the age of independence because it was a horribly negative influence on my life. Your comment reminds me of the fundamentalism I experienced in that church for a few years. HIV is a virus, like any other. It is communicated in a variety of ways, including sexual transmission. You want to use moral judgment language to condemn those who have been infected with this virus because they don't have your morals, they have their own morals. Yet you don't begin to appreciate that your words HURT people. You are a minister in a church and this is the best you can do in the face of death, illness and bereavement. Sara said, Shame on you. I can't disagree with her Philip. Your words belittle the gospel you say you proclaim.
If anyone reading this is HIV+, please do not allow Philip Campbell's comments to represent Christianity. I am a Christian and there are many like me who believe that this virus is NOT the judgment of God, anymore then a flu virus is the judgment of God. It is a medial condition and those who are infected need support and love and encouragement. Not judgment.