Effective today, the 22-year-old US immigration ban against people with HIV/AIDS has been lifted. In October, President Barack Obama announced his intention to change the rule, which he said was "rooted in fear rather than fact" and incompatible with the nation's prominent role in fighting AIDS globally. "The ban was imposed at the height of a global panic about the disease at the end of the 1980s," according to BBC News, which also covered the policy switch. "It put the US in a group of just 12 countries, also including Libya and Saudi Arabia, that excluded anyone suffering from HIV/AIDS." In 2012, the International AIDS Conference will return to the United States for the first time since the policy was enacted.
01/04/10
UNITED STATES: HIV/AIDS Travel Ban Lifted
Source: Advocate; Courtesy of the CDC National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention