Lambda Legal Statement Praising Passage of Groundbreaking California Organ Transplant Law Protecting People with HIV

(New York, September 30, 2005) — Statement by Jon Givner, HIV Project Director at Lambda Legal who testified before the Assembly Health Committee in favor of passage of AB 228, a law that bars providers from denying organ transplantation based on HIV status alone.

The law says, “A health care service plan shall not deny coverage that is otherwise available under the plan contract for the costs of solid organ or other tissue transplantation services based upon the enrollee or subscriber being infected with the human immunodeficiency virus.”

Jon Givner, HIV Project Director at Lambda Legal:

“This groundbreaking law is based on sound science and sets a national standard for protecting the HIV community. One-third of the people living with HIV are co-infected with Hepatitis C which can sometimes progress to end stage liver disease and requires patients to seek transplants. While California’s legislature and health plans have shown leadership on this issue, we’ve handled half a dozen cases in many states just in the past two years for people who have been denied organ transplants because they have HIV. In the experience of our clients and others like them, their HIV is under control and they had been living very active lives before they experienced complications from organ failure. As this new law recognizes, there is no justifiable reason to deny lifesaving treatment to people like our clients just because they are living with HIV.

“In the last decade since the advent of better treatments for people with HIV, the medical community nationwide has learned a great deal about organ transplants.

“Assembly member Paul Koretz worked tirelessly to see this bill through — the HIV community in California has a great ally.”

During his testimony Givner cited many examples of this data including a 2002 New England Journal of Medicine article on the subject that found “no evidence of poorer survival among otherwise healthy HIV-positive patients who are receiving anti-retroviral therapy.”