U.S. May Renew Entry Ban on Foreigners With AIDS

The Bush Administration may renew its policy of banning people infected with the AIDS virus from immigrating to the United States, scrapping earlier plans to overturn that stand, a source said Saturday.

Dr. James O. Mason, the assistant secretary for health, on Friday forwarded to Health and Human Services Secretary Louis W. Sullivan a proposed regulation that would retain the current prohibition on those infected with AIDS, said an HHS source who spoke on grounds of anonymity.

The source did not know whether Sullivan had approved or rejected the proposal.

In January, the department had proposed eliminating infection with the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS, from the list of diseases for which a person can be prevented from immigrating to this country. The disease had been on the list for four years.

“AIDS evokes an emotional response from many--and that’s understandable. But we have been virtually the only major country to try to bar HIV-infected travelers,” Sullivan said at the time. “This policy will bring us in line with the best medical thinking, here and abroad.”

Critics such as AIDS activists and public health groups had said the ban on immigration and visits by people with AIDS was discriminatory and not justified by medical reasons.

The outcry reached a crescendo last year, and the Administration relaxed the restriction by offering a special visa to people with AIDS shortly before an international AIDS conference in San Francisco. That did not stop the protests, and dozens of countries and organizations boycotted the meeting last summer because of the Administration’s policies.

But the HHS plan to take HIV infection off the list also generated concern, with some 40,000 people deluging the department with comments, spokesman William Grigg said.

“Many people in the comments said this could lead to people burdening our medical system,” Grigg said.

In the Immigration Act of 1990, Congress directed the HHS secretary to develop a new list.

In order for people with AIDS, leprosy and several venereal diseases to continue to be excluded from the United States, HHS must issue the new list, or a temporary version, by next Saturday.

When HHS proposed changing the rules on foreigners with AIDS, Administration officials said that it would not pose an additional AIDS risk to Americans because HIV is not spread by casual contact.