US: Thoughtful criminalisation discussion on US radio

On Monday, National Public Radio included a thoughtful and relatively balanced 30 minute discussion about the criminalisation of HIV transmission in the US and Canada. You can hear the discussion here.

Participants included Jon Wells, who interviewed Johnson Aziga for The Hamilton Spectator (and who provides some further insights into Mr Aziga); Regan Hofmann, editor-in-chief of POZ Magazine, who eloquently, subtly, and patiently, explained why many of these prosecutions (but not that of Mr Aziga) are wrong; and Jonathan Turley, professor of public interest law at George Washington University who blogs about the law. In the interview, he explains how so many of poorly-written HIV-specific US state laws came to be – a late 80s reaction to the myth of ‘patient zero’; fascinating.

New Zealand: Article examines implications of ‘HIV predator’ case

After all the hysterical media reporting surrounding the current ‘HIV predator’ case comes a thoughtful analysis of the situation from the New Zealand Herald. The article also usefully includes a summary of the most important criminal HIV transmission cases over the years.

I include the first few paragraphs below. Click here to read the full article.

HIV-positive: The case for disclosure
By Chris Barton
Saturday Jun 06, 2009

Many questions arise from the case of the 40-year-old HIV-positive man charged with wilfully infecting three other men with HIV and attempting to infect a fourth.

Not just why the man, now in custody with name suppression, allegedly did what he did. Or why it took so long for the police to stop him. Or why our laws are so out of date that doctors and other health professionals are uncertain about what to do when they come across such reckless behaviour. Or why HIV is not a notifiable condition.

Puzzling as all that sounds, the greater mystery here is why did the man’s sexual partners participate the way they did? Why, after decades of messages honed from the reality of the Aids epidemic 25 years on, did they not practise safe sex?

Past cases include:

1994 Kenyan musician Peter Mwai sentenced to seven years jail for having unprotected sex with five women and infecting two with HIV. Deported in June 1998 having served four years in jail here, Mwai died in Uganda in September 1998.

1999 David Purvis, a 31-year-old Pakuranga invalid beneficiary, sentenced to four months jail for committing a criminal nuisance by having unprotected sex with another man who did not contract HIV. Pleaded guilty.

2001 Former male prostitute Christopher Truscott held in “secure” care (he has escaped many times) in Christchurch after being prosecuted in 1999 for having unprotected sex with four men. Intellectually impaired, Truscott seemed unable to comprehend the implications of his HIV infection.

2004 Zimbabwean Shingirayi Nyarirangwe, 25, was sentenced to three years jail after pleading guilty in the Auckland District Court to four charges of criminal nuisance and three of assault relating to unprotected sex with several women.

2005 Justin Dalley found guilty of criminal nuisance by failing to inform a woman he was HIV positive – sentenced in Wellington to 300 hours’ community work, six months’ supervision and told him to pay $1000 reparation to the woman to cover her counselling costs and expenses. The woman did not contract HIV. Soon after, Dalley was acquitted on a second, similar charge because on that occasion he did wear a condom – possibly setting a legal precedent that by wearing a condom an HIV positive man is taking “reasonable precautions” against infection and need not disclose his HIV status.

Current A New Zealander originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo awaiting trial on charges that he had unprotected sex with a woman and infected her with the virus. It is possible he also infected other women.

US: Judge gives HIV-positive pregnant woman longer prison sentence ‘to protect unborn child’ (updated)

A judge in Maine has more than doubled the prison sentence of an HIV-positive woman in order to protect her unborn child, according to a report from The Bangor Daily News. The judge admits he based the decision entirely on the woman’s HIV status.

The 28 year-old woman, from Cameroon, had previously pleaded guilty for having fake documents. She was not legally entitled to be in the United States and was planning to seek asylum. The case has now been taken up by the Maine Civil Liberties Union.

Both prosecution and defence had asked U.S. District Judge John Woodcock to sentence the woman to 114 days, or time served (she has been in custody since January 21st). However, citing the welfare of the woman’s unborn child, the judge sentenced her to 238 days (to coincide with her due date of August 29th).

Woodcock told [the woman] at her sentencing on May 14 in U.S. District Court that he was not imposing the longer prison term to punish her further but to protect her unborn child. He said that the defendant was more likely to receive medical treatment and follow a drug regimen in federal prison than out on her own or in the custody of immigration officials. The judge also said that his decision was based entirely on her HIV status. If Tuleh were pregnant but not infected with the AIDS virus, he would have sentenced her to time served.

[…]

In sentencing Tuleh, Woodcock said that the law required he take into account a defendant’s medical condition in fashioning a sentence. Although a defendant’s medical condition most often is used to lower a sentence, the judge found that there was nothing in the federal sentencing guidelines to prevent him from imposing a sentence longer than the guidelines recommended because of Tuleh’s HIV status.

“My obligation is to protect the public from further crimes of the defendant,” he said at Tuleh’s sentencing, “and that public, it seems to me at this point, should likely include that child she’s carrying. I don’t think that the transfer of HIV to an unborn child is a crime technically under the law, but it is as direct and as likely as an ongoing assault.

“If I had — if I were to know conclusively that upon release from imprisonment a defendant was going to assault another person,” Woodcock said, “I would act in a fashion to prevent that, and similar to an assault, causing grievous injury to a wholly innocent person. And so I think I have the obligation to do what I can to protect that person, when that person is born, from permanent and ongoing harm.”

The Maine Civil Liberties Union told The Bangor Daily News.

“We are enormously sympathetic to the desire to ensure that Ms. Tuleh receives adequate health care, including prenatal care,” Zachary Heiden, legal director for the MCLU, said in an e-mail. “Federal immigration law has developed in truly arbitrary and punitive ways. Here, even a federal judge could not get assurances that Ms. Tuleh would not be deported before the end of her pregnancy. He could not get assurances she would not have her medical care arbitrarily cut off. That is wrong.

“Judges cannot lock a woman up simply because she is sick and pregnant,” he said. “Judges have enormous discretion in imposing sentences, and that is appropriate. But jailing someone is punishment — it is depriving them of liberty. That deprivation has to be justified, and illness or pregnancy is not justification for imprisonment.”

The sentence was objected to primarily by the prosecution, however.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd Lowell objected to Woodcock’s decision. Lowell said Tuleh’s sentence set a precedent that “could affect the many other sorts of cases that come before this court in which defendants have serious medical conditions. In the end, Bureau of Prisons custody is designed to incarcerate,” Lowell told Woodcock at the sentencing hearing. “Incarceration is mostly designed for the purpose of punishment, deterrence and community protection. The Bureau of Prisons is not well-designed to accomplish necessarily the end of providing medical care to a defendant and her unborn child.”

The US Attorney’s office has appealed the sentence to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, but arguments will not be heard until late July. The MCLU is also planning on submitting amicus curiae briefs on the issues of HIV, pregnancy, immigration law, and prisoner rights.

Update: June 18th The woman will now give birth in hospital rather than prison after Judge Woodcock heard new evidence that she will be looked after in the community, according to a report in The Bangor Daily News.

“I recognize that the sentence turned out to be controversial,” he said. “I can certainly understand how some have misinterpreted what the court intended to do in this case.”

Woodcock said that what he had wanted to do was “to step in between the prison system and the social [safety] net” to ensure that Tuleh remained healthy and that the child was born healthy.

“At the time of the sentencing, I had no clear understanding of what the community could do,” Woodcock said.

[…]

A three-judge panel in Boston has agreed to hear the appeal on an expedited schedule, but oral arguments are not expected to be held until late July and early August. In addition to appeals filed by the prosecution and the defense, a group of 15 individuals and organizations have filed in Bangor and Boston a “friend of the court” brief in support of Tuleh.

Woodcock said Monday that he found the brief “articulate and helpful” in making his decision about whether to release Tuleh on bail.

More details at the National Advocates for Pregnant Women site here

Click here to see the results of the paper’s poll asking whether a judge should be able to impose a longer sentence in order to protect an inmate’s unborn child?

US: Padieu gives TV interview, highlights Texan ‘injustice’

It wouldn’t happen anywhere else, but three days after Philippe Padieu was sentenced to 45 years in prison after being found guilty of six counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, after having unprotected sex without first disclosing his HIV status with six women who subsequently tested HIV-positive, he gave a TV interview to CBS 11 News.

In it, he essentially repeats the same accusations of bias and lack of evidence that he made in court prior to be sentenced.

I thought the trial was just public opinion turned against me. It wasn’t a fair trial at all… The reason I’m serving 45 years is because I had an ineffective counsel. I had no money…

However, seeing him say these things in the flesh makes me appreciate that he has a point. In particular, since Texas has no HIV-specific law, the bar is set much higher in proving that he actually infected the six women with HIV. Although phylogenetic analysis linked his strain of HIV with the six women’s, that is not enough to prove the direction of transmission, and – notably – the timing.

He noted that all six women had multiple partners, and that he had sex with three of them before he tested positive (which means he could have infected these women before knowing his status, which definitely would not be a crime).

I think it was an injustice. You couldn’t say anything about these woman in court. You couldn’t bring up their past sexual history.

However, some of his other allegations are more difficult to swallow, including saying that the six women were “very vindictive.”

You could blame them because they failed to take responsibility. They lied. They were involved in a conspiracy. They formed a hate group. I believe they should step up to the plate. They are just as responsible as I am…There’s rage. There’s vengeance. Admitting knowledge is not admitting responsibility. Hate and anger is fear and guilt in disguise.

Mr Padieu will now appeal and is looking for a new lawyer.

US: Young, recently diagnosed gay man in Washington State arrested for HIV exposure

A 22 year-old gay man from Spokane, Washington, who was diagnosed HIV-positive in August 2008 has been arrested and charged under Washington’s HIV exposure and transmission law following a complaint from a bisexual married man whom he met on the internet for casual sex.

The case highlights the great divide between criminal HIV laws and accepted practice amongst men who have sex with men. In particular, the Washingon State Appeals Court upheld in 1999 that if someone who knows their HIV status has unprotected sex with someone else without first disclosing then this is considered to be “acting with intent to inflict harm”.

Yet, the details of the case, which have been revealed in a series of stories published by local papers and TV in and around Spokane, suggest that the man had no intention of inflicting harm.

In yet another US trial by media, he was interviewed following his arraignment, by local TV station KXLY, during which he admits his (moral, rather than legal) guilt.

In a jail house interview Thursday afternoon [he] says he willingly had unprotected sex with men he met in online, on chat lines and in People’s Park without telling them he had HIV. “I can’t count but I think there’s a few that didn’t know,” [he] said…The 22-year-old contracted the virus from a former boyfriend and has known he’s HIV-positive since August but he continued to have unprotected sex and admits he only told about half the men he has the virus. “I wanted to apologize to everybody I’ve come into contact with and haven’t told,” he said.

[…He] said he had “no idea” why he was having unprotected sex, but claims that Spokane’s gay community isn’t as concerned as it used to be about the virus. “Nowadays if somebody has HIV they don’t care, they don’t care about asking,” he said. [He] is now sorry he wasn’t more careful with the married man that went to police. “I want to apologize to him and his family for putting him at risk, his wife at risk. Their lives are pretty much ruined from this point on if it comes back positive on them.”

The story doesn’t stop there, however. Citing police concerns that the man had sex with around 70 men since his diagnosis, Spokane’s public health department is launching an outreach campaign, including ads on craigslist and manhunt, and posters in public cruising areas, encouraging people to undergo HIV testing.

“We understand there may have been a number of anonymous sex partners that could have been exposed to HIV and because of this we are doing some extra outreach efforts,” said Lisa St. John with the Spokane Regional Health District. This type of outreach is something the health district has never done before. They want people to know they’re not affiliated with any kind of police investigation.

Last week, according to a story from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that number is now up to 80. Public health officials appear to be incredulous that a gay man with HIV could have so many sex partners (they obviously live very sheltered lives).

“Since I’ve been here we’ve not had an investigation of this magnitude,” said district spokeswoman Julie Graham, who’s been with the district for at least five years. According to court documents, [the accused man] signed health district paperwork last year warning him it was a crime to expose people to the virus without telling them. But [his] friends told police that he routinely meets anonymous men on the Internet and that he often visited a local park to have sex.

[…]

The health district has a process for discouraging risky sexual behavior, which can include issuing a cease-and-desist order, which if violated, can land the client in the court system. “On a rare occasion that we find out that someone has intentionally put others at risk, we would take the actions first to keep that from happening,” Graham said. “This is our first time where we have had our records subpoenaed by police as a first step.”

The person making the most sense was the accused man’s father, who apparently only discovered his son’s HIV status a few months ago. Both parents are supporting their son, and their response has been heroically pragmatic.

“I just feel that unsafe sex by anybody is real dumb in this place and time in the world,” [his father] said. “I blame both equally.”

Unfortunately, Washington State laws don’t blame both equally. The man has now pleaded not guilty, and a trial is set for July 20th.

New Zealand: HIV confidentiality laws may change due to ‘HIV predator’ case

In my last entry on the alleged NZ ‘HIV predator’ case – when I highlighed that GayNZ.com was pushing for the arrest and prosecution of an HIV-positive gay man in Auckland who allegedly meets men online, ‘persuades’ them to fall in love with him and then to have unprotected sex – I suggested this may turn out to be New Zealand’s version of the Michael Neal case. Turns out I was right, both in terms of the mainstream coverage and the potential political fallout.

The New Zealand government is now considering changing the 1956 Public Health Act to allow for health authorities to inform police if they believe an HIV-positive person is putting others at risk. According to the New Zealand Herald, the moves are being supported by New Zealand’s major HIV charity.

Health authorities were told the HIV-positive man was allegedly infecting people in Auckland and Wellington with the virus months ago but were not obliged to tell police, the Sunday News reported. Under the Public Health Act 1956 – which pre-dates HIV by many years – health professionals are not required to disclose the fact someone is HIV-positive or could be spreading the virus. The only exception is when a clinician knows a specific person is at risk, then the Medical Office of Health can be notified.

[…]

Health Minister Tony Ryall said he would meet with officials this week to discuss the possibility of a law change.

And New Zealand AIDS Foundation‘s spokesman Simon Harger-Forde, told the paper: “I think there needs to be more power for legislative agencies to prevent harm to others.” Interesting, then, that in 2005 they produced a poster for the Pan-Pacific HIV/ AIDS Conference which concluded: “Relying on the law to protect you from HIV is a risky strategy. Disclosure does not stop HIV transmission, condoms + lubricant do.”

Not coincidentally, New Zealand’s confidentiality laws were dissected last week in a GayNZ.com feature.

The implications of an alleged HIV+ predator infecting young gay men in our communities for a year or more are sinking in, and one of the first questions to emerge is: “Why didn’t someone do something sooner?”

[…]

Under the elderly Public Health Act 1956, which could not have predicted the emergence of HIV, health care professionals are not required to disclose an HIV positive person’s identity to those authorities with the responsibility and powers to aggressively ‘track and trace’ health threats and proactively head off those threats. Therefore privacy legislation rules.

However valuable or even vital it may be, short of a court order to provide the details an HIV positive person’s information must remain locked in his personal file, accessible only to the person who put it there. And a court order is unlikely to happen without a formal police investigation which cannot happen unless a victim makes a formal complaint to the police.

[…]

Essentially, the only person who can get the ball rolling to stop the pattern of infection is one of the infected victims. And there are any number of reasons why they might not feel able to take that step. They may not even be aware that they are part of ‘a situation.’ Perhaps some less formal process can come into play?

Update: June 4th. Interesting blog entry from Kevin Hague, former executive director of the New Zealand AIDS Foundation, who concludes

Reform of the Public Health legislation to give the medical Officer of Health a more finely graded set of responses will be very welcome if and when it finally occurs, but I can’t see any case for a change to privacy law.

[Back to original posting, below]

Indeed, much has transpired since my last blog entry two weeks ago. Notably, the man in question was arrested last Thursday, according to stuff.co.nz and although he was granted interim name suppression during Friday’s hearing, he was refused bail.

Judge Bouchier said the men who had been infected would never be cured and would suffer for the rest of their lives. She said she was concerned that if the accused was given bail, he might interfere with complainants and witnesses. “He has contacted one complainant several times and asked him not to contact police. The victims are fearful of him being granted bail. I don’t believe the court could make any bail conditions which would prevent the defendant from having access to the internet and continuing internet dating. He should be remanded in custody in the public interest.”

The man is charged under NZ’s Crimes Act 1961 for wounding with intent, or reckless disregard, for allegedly transmitting HIV to three men, aged 17, 24 and 26, and attempting to infect a fourth man, aged 31.

According to Judge Bouchier, the maximum penalty is seven years in prison for attempting to infect with HIV, and 14 years for transmitting HIV.

New Zealand: Alleged ‘HIV predator’ highlights gay community tensions

A rather disturbing developent from New Zealand highlights the tensions within the gay community over responsibility for HIV transmission during consensual, casual sex.

Update: The story has now gone mainstream, and it’s becoming clear that this may well be New Zealand’s version of the Michael Neal case. TVNZ.com features a five minute news report here, with a further story today on GayNZ.com. It seems the sex is consensual, but not casual: it is alleged he ‘grooms’ younger men, who fall in love with him, and who agree to have unprotected sex, without him disclosing his HIV status. As emotive as this may sound, let’s remember that these are allegations and this is trial by media.

GayNZ.com appears to behind a campaign to prosecute an HIV-positive gay man in Auckland who is allegedly meeting men on the internet for unprotected sex. Although it’s not clear whether he has actually committed any crime, GayNZ.com refers to him as an ‘HIV predator’ and has run six stories about him in the last three days.

The campaign began on May 12th:

GayNZ.com several days ago became aware of up to seven men in their late teens and early twenties, with one as young as seventeen, who claim that they have been infected through unprotected sex with the same man who is understood to know that he has the debilitating and sometimes deadly virus.
[…]
Auckland police became aware of the case following GayNZ.com enquiries, including an attempt to speak with the man, who is being described as “a cold, calculated predator” by a close associate of one of the infected men.
[…]
None of the infected men have felt able to discuss the matter with GayNZ.com except through intermediaries, and none have so far laid a formal complaint with the police. It is understood most of them have been in contact with HIV support organisations for up to six months.

To their credit, later the same day they published another story featuring quotes from the New Zeland AIDS Foundation highlighting that the man’s alleged behaviour was not typical of HIV-positive people in general, and that such rumours can perpetuate stigma and discrimination against all HIV-positive people.

“we are unable to comment on things that are currently in process, but are very concerned that as this case becomes more widely known, the HIV positive community may be further held in disrespect by the glbt and wider communities, due to the actions of one irresponsible HIV positive man.”
[…]
“Allegations and rumour can, and do, result in discrimination and stigma against people living with HIV as a group, says the Foundation’s Executive Director, Rachael LeMesurier. “Therefore it is important to note that these cases are not the norm. NZAF research has found that the majority of people living with HIV are very responsible when it comes to using condoms and lube for anal sex.”

However, minutes later they published another story featuring an interview with a man using the pseudonym ‘Max’.

“He targets young and vulnerable guys,” says ‘Max’, a man with a high profile in the LGBT community who has been providing support for one of the HIV infected young men. He has requested use of a pseudonym to protect the identity and wellbeing of one of the alleged victims whom he is assisting. “He makes them feel special and tells them that he loves them. They feel they love him. They become besotted with him. He develops a grip on them. He cuts them off from their family and friends.”

Max understands that at least two of the HIV infected victims broached the subject of his actions and HIV status with the man, “but he convinces them it’s ‘just vicious gossip’ from gay people who don’t like him.” Such is the influence the man apparently exerts over his victims none has reported the matter to the police and several are understood to still be protective of him. “One young guy acknowledges that he got HIV from this man but neither he nor his family have gone to the police,” observes Max. “I advised him that this man is evil and should go to prison but the youth just got upset about that prospect.”

“It’s devastating for these young men. To be infected with HIV in your teens is terrible,” says Max. “Somehow this guy has to be stopped.”

Finally, today, they ran a story confirming that the police are now investigating the man after a formal complaint was lodged.

“The investigation is now a formal investigation,” says Detective Andy King of the Adult Sexual Assault Team. “What we had before today was information that this situation was potentially ocurring. But now we have a formal complaint from a male in the community who is alleging that he has been deliberately infected with HIV by another male.”

King says his team is taking the complaint “very seriously” and that three police officers are now working on an official investigation of the matter. “We will now be looking to corroborate the information we have received from the complainant,” says King, who says he prefers not to give any details of the complainant or the complaint at this stage of the investigation.

Canada: First interview with Johnson Aziga published

The first post-verdict interview with Johnson Aziga has been published today in The Hamilton Spectator. Mr Aziga reveals very little, other than he is angry and confused. Oddly, the piece is split into two, unrelated web pages. Part one is here; part two here.

The article begins with a description of the journalist, Jon Wells, visiting Mr Aziga in his cell.

It is visiting hours at Barton Street jail. A lanky inmate in orange coveralls strolls up to Booth 11. He wears black-rimmed glasses, has tightly-cropped hair and beard, and the richly dark-hued skin characteristic of those from his east African birthplace.

Johnson Aziga, looking relaxed and healthy, sits on a metal stool and gently presses the palm of his big hand against the glass as though greeting a close friend, or family member, even though he does not recognize who is on the other side.

The visitor is a reporter. Aziga, the first man ever convicted in Canada of murder for intentionally spreading the HIV virus, is reluctant to talk. He says lies were told about him in his trial. And that the media coverage was racist. He’d like to take legal action against the media, in fact.

“The stories were racist, always saying I am from Uganda. I’ve lived in this country for 25 years.”

He says he wants the truth to be told. And what is the truth about Johnson Aziga? What is the truth about a man who carries a deadly virus inside him and repeatedly injects it into unsuspecting women during the most intimate of human acts — infecting seven and killing two of them? What kind of a monster does that?

Monster? Is the word extreme? The one who used the word is Aziga himself.

“How do you feel,” the visitor persists, “about the women who died?”

The casual body language now grows rigid, Aziga’s dark eyes flare, he appears annoyed, and puzzled, by the very question.

“How do I feel?”

It then tells the story of Mr Aziga’s life, including his troubled relationships with his ex-wife and some of the complainants, based primarily on already published evidence from the trial.

The term ‘monster’ comes from a letter Mr Aziga wrote to one of the complainants from jail.

“The powers of the devil can be very strong…It could have been a mid-life crisis. But I strongly believe my ex-wife had a big part to play … I can no longer hide the fact that she made me the mean, arrogant, insensitive, carefree, morally dead and socially, the monster of a machine that I am today.”

The piece also highlights the moment when the jury likely decided to find Mr Aziga guilty of murder.

In the end, the critical point in the double murder conviction registered by the jury was that Aziga knew he had infected the two women who were dying, but chose not to tell them about his status when he had opportunity to do so.

It ends where it began, with the main question posed to him during his interview.

Inside Barton Street jail, Johnson Aziga considers the question, growing agitated. How does he feel about the deaths of the two women?

“How do I feel?” he says on the phone. “This is how I feel.”

Aziga holds his middle finger erect to the glass, then stands to leave. Then sits again, his eyes blazing. “I am a human being, I have a heart,” he says, grabbing his chest hard with one hand.

“Do you feel remorse, regret, about the women?” the visitor persists. Aziga stands, and sits again.

“I came from Africa, where people were dying,” he says. “And you want to ask me about this?”

He slams the phone on the hook, walks away. Before he is allowed back into the general population, he rubs his head as though massaging a band of pain wrapped around his temples. Then his body seems to relax once more, he turns to another inmate in the orange coveralls. He leans to the man’s ear. Johnson Aziga smiles as he talks.

“Go over there and tell him I’m the killer,” he says.

US: Excellent Michigan Messenger article on abuse of ineffective HIV disclosure laws

Here’s a truly excellent, and sobering, article from the Michigan Messenger – an independently-produced political news daily featuring original and investigative reporting – that spells out in an interview with an African-Amercian man convicted under the state’s HIV exposure law – just how these laws are open to abuse, both by individuals and the criminal justice system itself.

In brief, Michael S. Holder was accused of not disclosing his status before having sex by his (white) ex-girlfriend. Five members of the jury admitted during jury selection that they were prejudiced either against inter-racial relationships or against African-American men, but were allowed to remain on the jury. The complainant retracted her original testimony on the stand, and admitted that Mr Holder had, in fact, disclosed his HIV status before they had sex.

On Dec. 3, 2001, the jury of 11 white women and one white man — including the five jurors who noted their opposition to inter-racial relationships on their questionnaires — voted to convict Holder of violating the disclosure law. He was sentenced to 10-15 years in prison, three times the recommended sentence. That sentence was reduced in 2003 to 7 1/2 to 15 years because of an appeal that the state Attorney General’s office failed to respond to. But Holder’s pleas for justice in regard to incompetent counsel were denied by the Michigan Court of Appeals and the Michigan Supreme Court. A writ of Habeas Corpus filed in federal court was denied and is currently slated for a hearing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in June.

The article also includes a brief history both of how Michigan’s HIV exposure laws came to be enacted, and US HIV-specific laws in general.

In 1990, the Ryan White Care Act required states receiving federal funds for the assistance of those impacted by HIV to certify the state had laws to prosecute HIV transmission. By the time the bill was sent for reauthorization in 2000, this mandate was removed, because 32 states had passed laws specific to HIV, and all 50 had certified they had criminal laws to address HIV transmission.

HIV is the only virus with a felony attached to it in Michigan. Those persons with human papillomaviruses, which have been linked to cancers, herpes, Hepatitis B and C, and other viral or bacterial infections are not required under state law to disclose their infection to potential sexual partners.

[…]

State Sen. Samuel Buzz Thomas, a Detroit Democrat, toyed with the idea of introducing legislation to expand the disclosure law to include persons infected with Hepatitis B and/or C last session. But the legislation was never introduced, his chief of staff Dennis Denno said. Thomas declined multiple requests for an interview on this topic.

It also includes interviews with Lance Gable, associate professor of law at Wayne State University; Bebe Anderson, Lambda Legal’s HIV project director; Jay Kaplan, staff attorney for the LGBT project of the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan; and, most strikingly, a Michigan Senator.

“By criminalizing sexual activity, it hasn’t been able to protect the public,” said State Sen. Hansen Clarke, a Detroit Democrat. “We’ve [the legislature] got to look at a different policy because the current one is not effective. It could be something counterproductive, but I have to research that more.”

Click here to read Michigan’s HIV disclosure law: Overly broad and open to abuse, by Todd A. Heywood.

US: Man at centre of 2007 XDR-TB alert sues CDC

I was alerted to this rather interesting piece of news by a regular reader from Canada, who points out the incredible differences between the way TB exposure and HIV exposure are treated. “Why was this guy not charged with some form of assault?” he wonders.

In 2007, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) used its isolation powers for the first time since 1963 after Andrew Speaker, a 31 year-old lawyer from Atlanta, took two transatlantic flights, as well as numerous shorter flights around Europe, despite being initially told that he was infected with multi drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and, once further test results were available, XDR-TB. He was told on his diagnosis with MDR-TB that it was “preferred” that he didn’t fly. Once he was diagnosed with XDR-TB he was told in no uncertain terms that he must not fly.

On Tuesday, according to an Associated Press article, Mr Speaker filed a lawsuit in federal court in Atlanta on Tuesday, which

claims the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention damaged Speaker’s reputation and made him the target of death threats. The lawsuit, which says he and his new bride split up because of the stress, seeks unspecified damages and court fees. It accuses the CDC of “unlawfully and unneccessarily” revealing Speaker’s private medical history and other sensitive information during an extensive media blitz in May 2007. “This is about setting the record straight,” Speaker said in a statement Wednesday. “Having my confidential medical history unnecessarily splashed across the world took a huge toll on me personally and professionally.”

Something is very wrong with this picture.