Alabama to End Isolation of Inmates With H.I.V.

[alp227]

Source: NYT

A federal judge on Friday ordered Alabama to stop isolating prisoners with H.I.V.

Alabama is one of two states, along with South Carolina, where H.I.V.-positive inmates are housed in separate prisons, away from other inmates, in an attempt to reduce medical costs and stop the spread of the virus, which causes AIDS.

Judge Myron H. Thompson of the Middle District of Alabama ruled in favor of a group of inmates who argued in a class-action lawsuit that they had been stigmatized and denied equal access to educational programs. The judge called the state’s policy “an unnecessary tool for preventing the transmission of H.I.V.” but “an effective one for humiliating and isolating prisoners living with the disease.”

After the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, many states, including New York, quarantined H.I.V.-positive prisoners to prevent the virus from spreading through sexual contact or through blood when inmates tattooed one another. But most states ended the practice voluntarily as powerful antiretroviral drugs reduced the risk of transmission.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/22/us/alabama-to-end-isolation-of-inmates-with-hiv.html

[leftlibdem420]

1. Progress.

Maybe in 10 years they'll legalize the sale of sex toys, implement a state income tax, write a real state constitution (rather than a 1000,000 word clusterfuck about zoning bylaws, racial segregation, and Sunday alcohol sales), rapture Roy Moore, and stop poor people from paying regress taxes on groceries and medicine.

[cosmicone]

2. I don't know about this

considering that prison rape is so prevalent, if you're in jail for a minor offense, you wouldn't want to be raped by an HIV positive guy and come out with a lifelong infection.

Added during Edit:

And this is my view regardless of the infection. I wouldn't want to be housed with someone who has multi-drug resistant TB or some other communicable disease either. HIV is a public health issue and not a gay rights issue. Even though a significant number of HIV sufferers in the US and Europe are gay, their numbers pale when the whole world is taken as a whole.

[Bluenorthwest]

3. Judge Thompson, who studied the issue, decidedly disagrees with you:

“an unnecessary tool for preventing the transmission of H.I.V.” but “an effective one for humiliating and isolating prisoners living with the disease.”

Unless you want to humiliate prisoners, there is no point to this at all. Other States and nations ceased this barbaric practice years ago.

[thesquanderer]

4. Maybe prison rape would be reduced...

...if inmates knew that their unwitting partners might have HIV, compared to knowing they were surrounded only with "safe" potential victims?

[cosmicone]

7. Not if the rapist is HIV positive. He wouldn't care. n/t

[Sgent]

5. Antivirals can

almost eliminate the risk of HIV transmission if started immediately after exposure.

[cosmicone]

6. That is not true.

Recently approved Truvada for even pre-exposure prophylaxis reduces the risk of HIV by only 42% and by 75% if a condom is used. There is no solid data on post-exposure prophylaxis because of the low infectivity of the virus. Only 20-24% of the people exposed to HIV actually catch it, so the data is sketchy.

[Posteritatis]

8. Basing policies on the assumption that people are going to get raped anyway is kind of fucked. (nt)