If You've Got HIV, America Doesn't Want You

"I have HIV," Biagio, a bartender at Escape in Soho tells me, so "I can't ever visit America." He's right, unless he puts his anti-retroviral drugs in unlabeled bottles and hopes immigration control doesn't stop him.
A 1993 law bans all HIV-positive would-be visitors from coming to the U.S. except under special circumstances. The law was put on the books at a time when HIV wasn't well understood and paranoia ran high. It's lingered for over a decade now, leaving people like Biagio and his friends feeling like toxins. Biagio tried to visit Los Angeles a year ago; it would be his first visit to the U.S. But his travel agency warned him not to risk it.
As a UK citizen, he doesn't need a visa to come to America for 90 days or less, but, if caught at customs with HIV-related medication, he could be forced to turn around and head home. "It's ridiculous," Biagio says.
He hasn't encountered this restriction anywhere on his travels throughout Europe so far. And it feeds into a broader view he has of the U.S. as a homophobic state that bans gay unions and ostracizes gays and lesbians in many parts of the country. "It's 18th century" behavior, he tells me. The law was implemented when greater stigma was attached to the disease -- especially regarding gay men -- and he interprets this current law as a perpetuation of that by some.
Biagio has been bartending for fourteen years. He began in Naples, Italy when he was fifteen before coming to London to learn English. Five years ago he was diagnosed, and his life changed, oddly, "very much for the better; I started taking care of myself, stopped taking drugs...Of course it'd be better if this had not happened, but..." he's still living his life to the fullest.
Over the past few months there's been serious reconsideration of America's HIV visitor policy. In December Bush talked about re-working it, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies put out a report in March calling for substantial changes to the law. Biagio isn't holding his breath. There are other places and things to see, and he loves it just where he is in Soho "serving drinks with passion" and "putting a smile on people's faces."
from The Washington Post