In Many States It Is Illegal To Keep HIV Status A Secret. Experts Say That’s Hurting Public Health
In many states, it is illegal for people to keep their HIV status secret. They can get up to eight years in prison for failing to disclose HIV status to sexual partners. But some public health experts want to change those laws, added in the books in 1999, arguing that the threat of prison actually “endangers public health”.
“A lot has happened since 1999, and lawmakers don’t necessarily know that," says Daphne Kackloudis, the chief public policy officer at Equitas Health.
"Let’s be honest, a lot of citizens who aren’t lawmakers don’t know the advances that have been made in science and the reasons we believe this law should be modernized," she says.
Kackloudis argues that nowadays with drug development, HIV has gone from a fatal infection to a manageable chronic condition to the point where a person “could have effectively no risk of transmitting HIV”.
Kackloudis and her team are fighting to reduce the charge from a felony to a misdemeanor.
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