White House Seeking Ideas for HIV/AIDS Strategy

Submit your ideas! Deadline extended to November 23.

You can make your voice heard concerning critical HIV issues in the United States.

The White House Office of National AIDS Policy is seeking input from groups and individuals to help shape a National HIV/AIDS Strategy.

Go directly to the White House website. The deadline for web submissions has been extended to Monday, November 23, 2009.

Lambda Legal has been advocating with the Obama administration to have important civil and human rights issues included in its national HIV/AIDS strategy.

The Obama administration showed responsiveness and initiative with regard to HIV/AIDS on October 30, when it announced it was lifting the antiquated and unjust twenty-year-old ban on travel to the U.S. by people living with HIV.

The administration has identified three broad goals for its national HIV/AIDS strategy: 1) to reduce HIV incidence; 2) to increase access to care and optimize health outcomes for people living with HIV and 3) to reduce HIV-related health disparities.

Protecting the civil and human rights of people with HIV/AIDS must be a central part of any national strategy. Lambda Legal and allied HIV civil rights organizations submitted a list of 15 critical civil rights issues for people living with HIV/AIDS in the United States that the new federal administration must address. Although the administration has made progress on several of these items, much remains to be done.

Important national HIV/AIDS issues that we believe must be addressed include the need to:

  • Combat government policies which criminalize consensual sex and other behaviors of people living with HIV.
  • Revise approaches to HIV testing to reflect the value to patients of providing specific written consent and receiving meaningful information before and after testing.
  • Provide immigrant detainees with confidential, timely and effective access to HIV treatment.

The Obama administration needs to hear from community members like you. Please submit your comments on or before November 23. You can also attend a town hall meeting during November or December.