National News: State Department drops ban on HIV-positive diplomats

State Department drops ban on HIV-positive diplomats
By Matthew Lee, Associated Press February 18, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) -- 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 Lambda Legal, a New York-based group that
advocates for the civil rights of homosexuals, bisexuals, transgender
people and 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.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.