Bush to ease rule limiting HIV-positive foreign visitors

[Newsjock]

This one slipped through, missing the deadline for LBN.

President Bush will ease a long-standing rule barring HIV-positive people from entering the United States without a special waiver, a ban long criticized by human rights groups.

Because of the rule, organizers of the biannual International AIDS Conferences have not held a gathering in the United States since 1990, when San Francisco hosted the event.

The White House chose Friday, World AIDS Day, to announce that Bush would issue an executive order allowing HIV-positive people to enter the United States on short-term tourist or business visas without having to seek special permission.

... "It's a step away from a terribly discriminatory and inappropriate policy, but it doesn't go far enough,'' said Leonard Rubenstein, executive director of Physicians for Human Rights, in Washington. "This is a treatable disease. If you want to remove stigma from AIDS, you have to go the whole distance, and eliminate all restrictions on entry to the United States for people with HIV.''