Margo, formerly a staff attorney fellow with the ACLU and a law clerk for Judge Julio M. Fuentes of the federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals, worked with Professor Derrick Bell on the sixth edition of his nationally-praised text, Race, Racism and American Law and brings a range of experience in human rights and international law.

Read the latest news and updates from the Center for HIV Law and Policy in its inaugural newsletter. Read the newsletter online or download the pdf.

On the advent of World AIDS Day, CHLP emphasized that rights violations that impede the response to the AIDS epidemic globally are also a critical problem in the United States: “[T]he United States’ response to AIDS should be a model of commitment to both human rights and the public health. But instead, our HIV/AIDS policies are increasingly ineffective and punitive, because they are driven by ideology and bigotry, not by sound science.” For example, U.S. prisons, jails, and detention facilities, like those in post-Soviet countries, provide virtually no comprehensive prevention education, and access to condoms and clean needles for injecting drug users is widely proscribed. The statement accompanied the release of a declaration, “Human Rights and HIV/AIDS: Now More Than Ever,” endorsed by more than 30 leading AIDS organizations around the world and calling for a major shift in the global response to HIV/AIDS. Click here to read CHLP’s press release.  Click here to visit CHLP’s dedicated Web site: www.hivtestingprinciples.org

Drafted by a coalition of advocates to inform those working on expanded HIV testing proposals, this set of basic principles is a tool to help stimulate conversations, planning, and community input. We hope that they will guide implementation discussions and call on stakeholders to consider treatment and care issues that should be linked to testing. They were conceived in the belief that everyone—consumers, community leaders, HIV/AIDS service organizations, physicians, nurses, public health, etc—has a stake in achieving an expanded testing paradigm in a thoughtful and meaningful way that produces long-term benefits for those with HIV. Endorsing organizations are calling for achievable testing expansion that recognizes the importance of patient autonomy and human rights, and actually reaches the undiagnosed and affords them real access to care and services.
Click here to download Expanding the Availability and Acceptance of Voluntary HIV Testing: Fundamental Principles to Guide Implementation

Click here to visit CHLP’s dedicated Web site: www.hivtestingprinciples.org 

Some of the new additions include good examples of ADA employment pleadings and briefs, and recently-released research on HIV testing and informed consent (showing that targeted HIV testing with counseling and informed consent is the most cost-effective approach to increasing the number of people who know their HIV status).

The 2006 CDC HIV testing guidelines and state HIV testing laws: We are regularly adding to this set of resources, as the debate around the value of informed consent and patient-centered HIV testing laws moves to the front burners in many states. Materials you can now download include a 2006 presentation by the New York Health and Hospitals Corporation on the huge success of an expanded testing program built to include individually-tailored counseling and written proof of informed consent. We’ve also posted slide presentations from a November, 2006 health care provider “summit” in Washington, DC centered on the CDC’s new guidelines, and plans to implement them. These and other materials we will be adding address the legal and quality of care issues raised by attempts to adopt the new guidelines; the myth that patient autonomy and written consent are a barrier to HIV testing and care; and the larger, unaddressed issues of health care financing and infrastructure that place in question the ability to adequately provide for all who are diagnosed and in need of care, including the incarcerated.

The National HIV/AIDS Partnership has recognized CHLP Executive Director Catherine Hanssens with a Red Ribbon Leadership Award for Policy. In a ceremony on December 1, World AIDS Day, Hanssens was among the recipients honored for superlative leadership in the development of policies and guidelines that support the rights of individuals living with or at high risk for HIV/AIDS.

In a conference of international human rights advocates connected with the 2006 International AIDS Conference in Toronto, most of the organizational representatives agreed on the importance of new analytical and advocacy tools, including facilitated access to experts and expertise in HIV human and civil rights issues; and new mechanisms for information sharing, such as a web-based resource center. CHLP received mention as a potential model for future international systems. We are excited for the acknowledgment of Catherine’s contributions to the future of HIV advocacy.