PERSONAL SIDEBAR: I freaked out when I read this in the Federal Register. My first thought was, “Won’t that increase the HIV/AIDS population in the U.S. now?”

But apparently not. The government (meaning the public health department), industry officials and consumer advocates are not really worried about it.

Apparently, in the 80’s, when AIDS was on the rise, the U.S. made a swift move to keep out anybody who had HIV or AIDS. Immigrants who had HIV when they got to the border were turned away.

A federal health agency today announced that they want to remove HIV from the list of diseases that can keep an immigrant from crossing permanently into the United States. In fact, in July 2008, an act under the Bush administration allowed the CDC to reconsider whether HIV should remain and be removed from the regulations.

Now Obama is following up in agreement.

A notice of proposed rules from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that HIV is a “serious health condition,” but “it does not represent a communicable disease that is a significant threat for introduction, transmission, and spread to the U.S. population through casual contact.”

(What is casual contact anyway?) The CDC answers this and other questions that you probably have about this here.

If the rule passes, aliens would no longer be inadmissible into the US based solely on their HIV-positive status, and they would no longer take HIV tests as part of pre-border crossing medical examinations.

Currently, communicable diseases, as defined by government standards, include tuberculosis, syphilis, gonorrhea, HIV and diseases that pose public health emergencies. The President can also designate a quarantinable disease through an executive order. Things that can keep a non-citizen from receiving a visa such as threatening mental disorders, drug addiction, and not having vaccinations for preventable diseases like measles, polio, tetanus, and hepatitis.

See proposal here: http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/E9-15814.htm