Under pressure
from a lawsuit, the State Department is changing rules
that had disqualified HIV-positive people from becoming U.S.
diplomats.
Under pressure
from a lawsuit, the State Department is changing rules
that had disqualified HIV-positive people from becoming U.S.
diplomats.
Effective Friday,
the department removed HIV from a list of medical
conditions that automatically prevent foreign service
candidates from meeting an employment requirement that
they be able to work anywhere in the world.
The change was
made after consultation with medical experts and in
response to a lawsuit filed by an HIV-positive man who was
denied entry into the foreign service despite being
otherwise qualified, the department said.
Prospective
diplomats with HIV will now be considered for the foreign
service on a case-by-case basis, along with those with other
designated ailments like cancer to determine if they
meet the ''worldwide availability'' standard, it said.
Officials denied
that the policy had ever intentionally discriminated
against HIV-positive people and noted that the policy had
applied only to incoming diplomats, not those who had
contracted the virus or other diseases while in the
foreign service.
''We have a
policy requiring that all foreign service officers be
worldwide available as determined by a medical examination
at the time of entry into the foreign service,'' said
Gonzalo Gallegos, a State Department spokesman. ''That
has not changed.''
The department's
chief medical officer had ''revised its medical
clearance guidelines on HIV based on advances in HIV care
and treatment and consultations with medical
experts,'' Gallegos said. ''The new clearance
guidelines provide that HIV-positive individuals may be
deemed worldwide available if certain medical
conditions are met.''
The decision was
hailed by Lamba Legal, a New York–based group that
advocates for the civil rights of LGBT people as well
as those with HIV and represented the plaintiff
in the lawsuit against the State Department.
''The new
guidelines mean that candidates for foreign service posts
who have HIV will now be assessed on a case-by-case
basis, as the law requires,'' said Bebe Anderson, the
organization's HIV project director. ''At long last,
the State Department is taking down its sign that read,
'People with HIV need not apply.'''
The change in
policy came less than two weeks before the trial in the
lawsuit brought in 2003 by Lorenzo Taylor, a trilingual
international affairs specialist who passed the
difficult foreign service application process but was
rejected after he told the department of his HIV status.
''Now people like
me who apply to the foreign service will not have to go
through what I did,'' Taylor said in a statement. ''They and
others with HIV will know that they do not have to
surrender to stigma, ignorance, fear, or the efforts
of anyone, even the federal government, to impose
second-class citizenship on them. They can fight back.''
Lambda Legal said
the suit had been settled ''partly due to the new
guidelines,'' but the State Department said the policy
switch was not part of the settlement.
''The change
simply reflects medical advances in the area of HIV care and
maintenance,'' Gallegos said. (AP)
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