June 22, 2007
AIDS ACTION IN ALBANY
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Healthy advocacy, mixed results |
It was a mixed end of session for HIV/AIDS legislation in Albany.
New York legislators passed a historic forced-HIV-testing measure aimed at sexual assault suspects before leaving town Thursday night.
And the signals were good for passage of a bill restoring about $543 per month to over one thousand low—income families that receive the AIDS shelter allowance and include a disabled child who gets SSI. The Measure passed in the Assembly on Thursday and is expected to move through the Senate upon the Senate's return in July.
But there won't be action on a broad revision of HIV testing laws that we reported on earlier this week. Senate sponsor and Health Committee Chair Kemp Hannon was said to have concerns about broad "universal offer" provisions and about elimination of clear written consent requirements for testing.
The Healthy Teens Act, to provide age-appropriate, medically-accurate sexual education to all New York youth was still being held hostage by Senate Republicans as the Update went to print, despite active advocacy by dozens of teens at the Capitol.And the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act that would protect transgender New Yorkers languished in the Assembly Rules committee despite a last-minute push by activists. Senate Republicans have long declined to move the bill forward in their house.
Mayersohn mines the vein of HIV stigmaThe forced-testing bill is "a misguided measure that actually threatens the health of rape survivors in order to score easy political points," said Michael Kink, Legislative Counsel for Housing Works. The bill passed in the Senate 124-21.
Last-minute amendments to the bill did little to stifle its potential harmful impact on survivors — or the likelihood that it will boost HIV stigma each and every time it is used. Some observers say the measure could turn nearly every rape prosecution into a high-powered media circus, allowing prosecutors to play on public fears and ignorance about HIV/AIDS.
As Update readers know, state and federal officials recommend a full course of anti-HIV drugs in the vast majority of cases where there's a risk of infection from sexual assault. The bill's monomaniacal focus on testing suspects may lead survivors to delay or discontinue treatment they actually need.
NYSDOH treatment protocols recommend starting treatment regardless of the status of a suspect or source, and recommend continuing treatment even if a suspect tests negative in all cases where the suspect appears to be at high risk for HIV.
There's a real danger of a "false negative" that could provide misleading information to a survivor either during a "window period" prior to seroconversion (because it takes up to three months to develop antibodies to an HIV infection — during this period a suspect could test negative while actually being positive and highly infectious) or because a "negative" suspect could be innocent while the actual perpetrator is positive.
Housing Works clients and staff continued to press for Assembly Members to vote against the misguided measure Thursday afternoon, and press coverage of our Monday protest continued in Albany daily and weekly newspapers and on TV .
But legislative leaders and Governor Spitzer told reporters it would be one of the items nailed down before the legislature left home Thursday night. We'll have a full session wrap-up in next week's Update, as well as some advance notes on next year's high-priority AIDS items for Albany.