End of AIDS Travel Ban Expected : Legislation: A bill would allow the disease to be removed from list of barred illnesses. Congress’ rush to adjourn should speed approval.

In the frantic crush of last-minute legislation, a little-noticed measure with major implications for AIDS policy is expected to breeze through Congress before it adjourns.

The provision, which was quietly wrapped into a massive immigration bill, gives the secretary of health and human services the authority to establish a new list of communicable diseases considered dangerous to the public health. People with diseases on the list--which now includes AIDS and infection with the human immunodeficiency virus--are not allowed to enter this country, even for short visits.

Federal health officials have said repeatedly that neither AIDS nor HIV infection belong on the list, and they are expected to act to remove them once they have the power to do so. This legislation would give them that authority.

The measure, in effect, would eliminate the existing ban on AIDS-infected people, which has been the object of widespread global condemnation for the last three years. The policy had threatened the future of the International AIDS Conference--the world’s premier AIDS medical meeting. Harvard University, which is to be host to the 1992 meeting, had announced that it would drop its sponsorship if the law was not changed. Other potential U.S. sites were expected to follow Harvard’s lead.

“This will restore our position in the world as a nation that is fair and just and understands what HIV is all about,” said Larry Kessler, a member of the National AIDS Commission, one of the groups leading the fight to change the current policy.

“It is important that the United States continue to be a presence in the international AIDS debate, and we should not be having that debate within a cloud of embarrassment,” he added.

The debate over the federal policy began three years ago, but it intensified in the months preceding this year’s International AIDS Conference, held in San Francisco last June. Participants traveling from other countries and infected with the AIDS virus had to obtain special waivers to enter the United States in order to attend.

The current regulation slipped through Congress in 1987--almost equally unnoticed--largely at the instigation of Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), who has often been at odds with the homosexual community over AIDS policy.

Three years ago, it seemed logical to both public health officials and lawmakers to add AIDS to the list because it was a communicable disease like the others on the list, most of which are sexually transmitted diseases.

But legislators and health officials did not then take into account the social and diplomatic ramifications, in particular the objections of other countries that placed no restrictions on American travelers with HIV. Many of those countries noted that the United States itself has one of the largest AIDS caseloads in the world. The United States is the only developed nation--and one of only a handful of countries--with restrictions against HIV-infected travelers.

Public health officials have since reversed themselves. In fact, they have said that the only disease that should remain on such a list is active tuberculosis.

If an attempt to change the policy had happened at a different time, it might have provoked serious opposition from conservatives. In 1987, Helms insisted that Congress support the restriction, saying that “the people of the United States will hold this Congress responsible if we don’t do something about (AIDS).”

But lawmakers are eager to shepherd a major immigration bill through Congress and are under tremendous pressure to pass a budget, finish other legislative business and leave town to get home for the elections.

Thus, the entire package, including the provision (which does not specifically mention the word AIDS ), is expected to be approved without a whimper.

“We’re pleased that, finally, issues regarding the public health are going to be decided by public health authorities,” said Dan Bross, executive director of the AIDS Action Council. “Public health authorities agree that there are no reasons for these exclusions and that such issues should not be addressed in the political context.”

The bill must still be signed by President Bush after it is approved by the Senate and House, but the White House is expected to approve the measure.

“We’re thrilled . . . “ said Max Essex, a Harvard University AIDS researcher who is chairman of the 1992 conference. “This bill puts the decision about which diseases require entry restrictions where it belongs: in the hands of the public health service. As such, the bill opens the way for rational travel policies that don’t discriminate against people with HIV.”

Dr. Paul Volberding, professor of medicine at UC San Francisco and president of the International AIDS Society, agreed, saying it was “very clear to us as we organized the meeting in San Francisco this past summer that the United States was well outside the standards of other countries.”

He added: “We found it a great embarrassment to have to explain why we found it necessary to restrict travel--whereas all the other countries to which our own patients frequently travel put no similar barriers in their way.”