With HIV travel ban lifted, AIDS conference will return to U.S.

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The 2012 international conference on AIDS will be held in Washington, it was announced today, after the White House lifted the ban in October that prevented people infected with HIV from entering the U.S.

President Obama announced this fall the United States would lift the ban, which was enacted 22 years ago. At a briefing today, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the AIDS conference would return to the United States for the first time since 1990.

“We have to continue to seek a global solution to this global problem,” Clinton said.

“The return of the conference to the United States is the result of years of dedicated advocacy to end a misguided policy based on fear, rather than science,” International AIDS Society President-elect Elly Katabira said in a statement.

She also urged other nations with similar bans to follow the U.S. action.

--Michael Muskal
Twitter.com/LATimesmuskal