AIDS WATCH : Judicial Error

It’s tragic enough for a person to discover that he or she is HIV-positive. For a victim of this epidemic to also be victimized by ignorance in our courts is unconscionable.

Sadly, that is exactly what has happened to too many AIDS-infected people. Researchers with the AIDS Litigation Project, funded by the U.S. Public Health Service, have found, after a nationwide study, that courts have been “reinforcing stereotypical attitudes about AIDS and people with AIDS, and their decisions haven’t reflected scientific knowledge.”

The existing body of employment and housing law clearly prohibits the most obvious forms of discrimination against people with AIDS. But judges still permit insurance companies to unfairly restrict the access of AIDS patients to health care or deny death benefits. In one case, an insurer successfully denied health coverage to a widow and her children, none of whom tested HIV-positive, after her husband died of AIDS.

“Old stereotypes” and “irrational fears” emerge in the courtroom as well. Despite widespread agreement by experts that AIDS is transmitted only by exchanging body fluids or sharing hypodermic needles, one court unreasonably allowed fearful guards to stand 10 feet away from an HIV-infected criminal defendant. Another irresponsibly labeled an object as “Evidence from an AIDS patient--Don’t Touch.”

What’s the answer? More comprehensive AIDS education for judges who apparently still have trouble “distinguishing important from inconsequential risks of AIDS transmission.”