AIDS activists denounce U.S. travel rules
OTTAWA-AIDS activists are upset about recent changes to travel requirements they say make it more difficult to cross the border into the United States.
Although a long-standing and much-criticized travel ban prohibiting people with HIV from entering the country was lifted last year, some say things have actually gotten worse at the border.
Jay Koonstra, director of Bruce House, a residential care facility for HIV patients, said activists planning on attending an AIDS conference in Washington were told that travellers with HIV were required to obtain a special visa.
“It’s a process that makes it tantamount to a (travel) ban,” Koonstra said.
“It’s a costly process, it’s an embarrassing process and it’s a discriminatory process. That’s not what HIV activists were thinking was going to be the result of lifting the ban.”
However, David Hopper, the U.S. consul general in Ottawa, said once officials learned of the Housing and HIV/AIDS Research Summit, which began Wednesday, they reached out to organizers and offered them expedited visa processes.
“Because of the date of the conference and the urgency of the situation, we would have found a way,” Hopper said.
But, he said, there were no takers.
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BrianC Says:
The restrictions sound pretty reasonable to me.
Posted on June 4th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Jack Says:
Not at all. The US is full of aids. What difference does it make if a few more show up for a conference?
Posted on June 4th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Mac Says:
The only difference, Jack, would be if those AIDS carriers were from another country where medical treatment was either unavailable or inaccessible and they decided to stay in the US and start tapping on the Medicare system.
Although there is supposed very little “public medicine” in the US, I wonder why Medicare is the third largest item on the US Federal government’s budget? Things that make you go “hmmm”.
Posted on June 4th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
Jack Says:
Your comment reminded me of something so I went looking for it.
You’re right, Mac.
Posted on June 6th, 2009 at 7:01 pm