Sullivan Backs Dropping AIDS Virus as a Disease Barring Entry to U.S.

Health and Human Services Secretary Louis W. Sullivan has approved a draft decision to drop infection with the AIDS virus from the list of diseases that may keep travelers and immigrants out of the United States.

The department has not yet made the decision final and announced it, however, because it still must get comments from the State and Justice departments, said the official, who disclosed the action Thursday night.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity.

The secretary’s action was made possible by last fall’s immigration bill, which reversed 1987 legislation making infection with the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS automatic grounds for exclusion from the United States.

The immigration bill left it up to the secretary whether to drop HIV infection from the list of more than 30 diseases that bar entry to the country, a list that includes syphilis, tuberculosis and leprosy.

Everybody with AIDS is, by definition, infected with HIV, but many people infected with HIV do not have AIDS, though they likely will develop it eventually.

The virus is transmitted generally through sexual contact or use of infected blood.

Sullivan has said that he saw no reason to exclude people from the United States because of AIDS, and his action Thursday had been expected.

The issue became controversial last year, when organizers of the international conference on AIDS held in San Francisco learned of the 1987 exclusionary provisions.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service twice acted to dilute the exclusion. It announced the availability of a 30-day waiver for people with HIV to attended conferences, get medical treatment or visit family members, and it developed a new 10-day visa for people attending scientific conferences that did not require any statement of infection.

But conference organizers were outraged. Some European governments urged a boycott of the conference, some organizations did so and the International AIDS Society, the conference sponsor, said it would hold no more in the U.S. if the provisions remained.