The criminalization of HIV transmission

The two lawyers who wrote about this in the August 6, 2008 JAMA are probably correct. Making it illegal to infect another person isn't going to save many lives and will probably discourage some from getting the care they need. For the most part, their article is about Africa, although their footnotes are from Europe and US. Even so, their recommendations are so pie-in-the-sky it makes you wonder. Except for the sex part, I think I was collecting U.S. government funded reports on this in the 1970s in the agriculture library. And then the goal was a bit smaller--better crops. (AIDS was in Africa at that time, but no one knew it.)

address women's subordinate socioeconomic positions [mentioned several times in the article]

improve women's status and offer serious protection of women's rights

promote equal status of women in marriage, inheritance, access to credit, and employment

address cultural issues such as dry sex and "wife inheritance"

protect women from violence and ostracism

those with HIV MUST PROTECT OTHERS [my emphasis]

those jurisdictions which have criminalization laws in place must reverse them

Maybe they should cut their teeth on global warming first, then work on completely changing the culture of Africa.

"The case against criminalization of HIV transmission," by Scott Burris and Edwin Cameron. JAMA, August 6, 2008, Vol. 300, no. 5, pp. 578-581.