The push to criminalize HIV started in the 1980s, after unconfirmed reports that a French-Canadian flight attendant, Gaetan Dugas, purposely and knowingly infected gay and bisexual men with what was then called the “gay cancer” or the “gay plague.” There have been other similar stories among the sex work community. There were unconfirmed reports of full service sex workers also purposely having unprotected sex with clients.
These stories and others pushed state governments to pass laws that essentially criminalized HIV in a way that no other disease has been criminalized. People will point to HIV’s incurable status and the fact that it costs tens of thousands of dollars to treat it as the reason why people with HIV need to be punished so severely. However, there are other viruses that are permanent and can cause fatal disease. Hepatitis C virus — though curable — can cause liver failure and liver cancer, which can cause people to die.
The Human Papillomavirus (HPV) has strains that do not go away and can cause oral, anal and sexual organ cancers, which people die from. Even the SARS-CoV-2 virus — the virus that causes COVID-19 — can cause permanent lung damage or lung failure; it killed more people in its first year than even HIV did.
Should people disclose their HIV status if asked? That requires much thought on the part of the HIV- positive person. Even now, more than 40 years after its discovery, people with HIV are mistreated, brutalized and discriminated against due to their seroconversion status. To disclose this is a highly personal thing.
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Not disclosing HIV status is classified as sexual violence and a heavy crime in many jurisdictions that can land a person in prison for over 10 years.
A person cannot consent to something they are not aware of, and purposefully not disclosing HIV status can change the course of a persons entire life or kill them.
Also the Hep -C comparison is a terrible one. Damage such as whats mentioned happens only with long term infection without treatment. Same with STDs such as syphillis. HIV is incurable, will cause severe damage in the stages it is normally caught, even if the person uses all options that medicine has, and will irrevocably change their lives. Also, they can now spread it to other people unknowingly. Comparing HIV to other STD’s is a Coughing Baby v Hydrogen Bomb scenario.
Also HIV antivirals can cost from 700-4000 dollars A MONTH, for a person with HIV. The medicine is rare, difficult to develop, and must be fine tuned to each person or they not work. What if a person cannot afford this? Or they are in an area that doesn’t have access to that extremely rare medication?
ALL STDs should be disclosed.
HIV […] will cause severe damage even if the person uses all options that medicine has
Most of what you have said is true, but this one part isn’t. An HIV infection carries an increase in the risk of suffering a set of diseases (although this risk will in general decrease with proper ART), but overall it is deemed that HIV+ patients under adequate ART have the same life expectancy than non-HIV+ people, which is a very different reality from the one you imply in which it WILL cause severe damage despite proper treatment.
Thanks for pointing that out! I worded my point poorly and I’ll go edit that. What I was trying to say is that HIV progresses to AIDS and causes severe damage frequently due to its hidden nature, and the “low consequences” depends when the infection is caught. If it is caught during the acute infection stage, or early in the infection then damage would be minimal. However, the vast majority of people are not getting regular STD or blood testing and for some people it never crosses their mind because they’ve only ever had a tiny amount of partners, or maybe only one as in the case with 50% of Gen-Z.
Further, why would you get tested if your partner looked healthy, all you got was a bad case of the “flu” that was “definitely” unrelated to the sex, and your partner never told you about their status? We cannot also discount the social stigma surrounding testing, which while improving in recent years, still carries the stigma in large parts of the world that, “Why would you get tested if you aren’t dirty or a prostitute”? Or the general unavailability of testing. Organizations like Planned Parenthood or college STD labs are invaluable, but not everyone has access to that.
For that reason, what are the odds of that person finding the disease in the Clinical Latency or chronic stage before it develops into AIDS or a more devastating secondary infection takes hold? Even without a secondary infection, AIDS has its own list of devastating symptoms.
Yes, people should disclose their STD status.
Should people disclose their HIV status if asked? […] To disclose this is a highly personal thing.
Yes and no. I do not know how it is in other countries, but in mine it is punished by law to expose a person to a situation of risk such as it is the possibility of transmitting an STD if they are unaware of such risk, due to the fact that they cannot consent to it if they are not aware of such. In fact, one of the very few cases in which doctors are allowed (and moreover, mandated) to break professional secret is if a VIH+ patient is consciously putting a sexual partner at risk without their knowledge.
Right to intimacy is extremely important, but it also carries responsibilities. If this is relevant to you, I encourage you to read about the laws on the matter where you live.
In my jurisdiction putting an non-consenting individual at risk for HIV is counted as sexual violence at minimum and attempted murder if the person is doing it maliciously or is attempting to cover up their HIV positive status. This must be disclosed by doctors to the police or the doctor will lose their license.
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I wouldn’t say malicious, but this reads like it comes from person who either doesn’t have HIV and doesn’t understand the nature of the disease and its history, or a person who is incredibly privileged and unaware that anti-virals are horrifically expensive, rare, and unobtainable for the vast majority of people.
