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KANSAS CITY, Kan. — In an effort to protect the public from infectious diseases, a proposed bill in Kansas has some feeling ostracized. That’s because the bill allows people with HIV or AIDS to be quarantined.
Right now, if a firefighter or a paramedic in Kansas is exposed to bodily fluids while treating a victim, they need a court order to get that victim’s blood tested for infectious diseases. But lawmakers are close to passing a new law eliminating that court order. Some, though, say the new law discriminates against those who have HIV or AIDS. That’s because lawmakers have written in the legislation that anyone who has HIV can be quarantined, or in other words, isolated from the general population.
Kansas banned quarantining those with AIDS back in 1988, but if this law is passed, those in the LGBT community fear health officials — especially those in rural areas — will begin intimidating those with HIV by threatening to quarantine them.
Lawmakers say that is not the intent of this law, that they want to give health officials the ability to quarantine those with infectious diseases if need be. But since the way people are infected with HIV is so different from many other infectious diseases like TB and Hepatitis, AIDS activists don’t believe HIV patients should ever be threatened by health officials.
“They didn’t get that whole idea of being discriminated against,” said Cody Patton, Positive Directions Inc. “And they didn’t get that that stuff still happens today. My concern is that there’s a lot of people in this state that are still fearful of HIV that don’t look at factual information.
Lawmakers in both the House and Senate are currently working together to get this law passed, so expect them to vote on it — and most likely pass it — in the next few weeks.
Last edited by CaseyB; 03-27-2013 at 10:09 AM..
Reason: off topic
Those bad (Lawmakers in both the House and Senate), trying to save lives
and the spread of infectious diseases.
What are they thinking? Why would anyone want to save a firefighter's life?
Just because he saved your life, and he wants to stay alive too? What gall?
Last edited by buddy5; 03-27-2013 at 11:24 AM..
Reason: gettin' old, dementia crawling in
It's very unlikely that any law that allows a persons blood to be taken without their consent will survive the courts and it shouldn't but this is indeed a thorny issue.
An emergency responder certainly has a valid concern here.
Its a battle between Kansas and North Dakota to see which state makes itself a haven for extreme right-winger nutjobs and a bastion for Taliban-like activity !
Gee, imagine you have someone with drug resistant TB refusing to stay away from people, maybe taking jobs in restaurants without telling them? How about HIV+ prostitutes?
Last edited by CaseyB; 03-27-2013 at 10:10 AM..
Reason: response to deletion
Plenty of room for abuse with this. Seems to me a beginning attempt to run HIV people out of Kansas. They most likely dreamed this up in that secret meeting they had awhile back.
Plenty of room for abuse with this. Seems to me a beginning attempt to run HIV people out of Kansas. They most likely dreamed this up in that secret meeting they had awhile back.
I think you just want to ignore the issue so that these diseases can continue to kill off gays, prisoners and other people you find "undesirable" and thus expendable.
Yeah, let's not quarantine people with drug resistant TB....just put them back in their cell....that will free up some more beds soon enough.
Ever seen the TB death stats in the US prison system?
Last edited by CaseyB; 03-27-2013 at 11:19 AM..
Reason: off topic
Its a battle between Kansas and North Dakota to see which state makes itself a haven for extreme right-winger nutjobs and a bastion for Taliban-like activity !
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What gall?
