
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, April 14, 1990                   TAG: 9004140174
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

U.S. CREATES 10-DAY VISA FOR THOSE WITH AIDS VIRUS

The Bush administration Friday modified the controversial U.S. policy of barring people with the AIDS virus from entering the country, creating a special 10-day visa for anyone attending a White House-approved scientific or professional conference.

The action - which allows immigration officials to grant visas to persons attending such conferences without asking questions about the AIDS virus - is an attempt to salvage the sixth annual International Conference on AIDS, which will be held in June in San Francisco. Dozens of AIDS organizations from around the world have said they will boycott the meeting to protest the U.S. visa restrictions.

"It is important that we support the free exchange of scientific information across international boundaries," said Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan, who under the new rules will be responsible for deciding which conferences are "in the public and interest" and worthy of the visas. "The special visa procedures announced today will help bring about productive results from the San Francisco conference and other meetings in the future."

But the announcement drew only lukewarm support from AIDS groups and public health officials, who said it stopped short of addressing their underlying concerns about U.S. immigration policy.

"It's progress and one always likes to celebrate progress," said June Osborne, chairman of the National Commission on AIDS. "But 10 days is too short and we still have discrimination. This whole business of limitation worries me. The policy won't be appropriate until HIV is entirely out of it." HIV stands for human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS.

Many AIDS groups have said they are frustrated because the White House has not yet said whether it will support a bill introduced in the House two weeks ago that would grant the secretary of Health and Human Services the authority to take AIDS off the list of diseases subject to immigration restriction.

A number of critics also raised questions about the provision in the new visa regulations that would allow the health secretary to determine which meetings deserve visas.

"That is not the expertise of the secretary," said Chai Feldblum, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "At a minimum the government would have to establish some procedure for deciding what is in the public interest and set up an appeals process so there is some assurance that these judgements would not be made on political or ideological grounds. This could raise serious constitutional questions."

Last February the national Centers for Disease Control said there was no public health reason for keeping AIDS on the list.

by CNB