Jailing HIV transmitters - threat to public health
Gus Cairns, UK Gay.Com / Positive Nation Daily News | 05.10.2006 05:42
Prosecuting people who recklessly transmit HIV is “pursuing justice against the few at the expense of the many,” say a doctor and a public health expert writing in the doctors’ house magazine the British Medical Journal (BMJ).
The comments, by Ruth Lowbury of the Medical Foundation for AIDS and Sexual Health and Dr George Kinghorn of Sheffield’s Royal Hallamshire Hospital, were picked up on in a broadly supportive article in the Daily Mail – possibly a sign that some public attitudes are changing.
Lowbury and Kinghorn were responding to the recent Crown Prosecution Service consultation, which Gay.com reported on recently.
However a recent case in Merseyside where a psychologically-damaged ex-soldier was persuaded to plead guilty to infecting his 49-year old girlfriend, herself with mental health problems, continues to raise disturbing questions about the attitude of the judiciary to so-called ‘ADS assassins’ and the expertise of lawyers called to defend them.
In the BMJ piece, Lowbury and Kinghorn say that the threat of prosecution will deter people with HIV from being tested, or, when tested from disclosing their status to their partners.
They say: “Those who take the test may not agree to their partners being notified for fear of legal repercussions, thereby jeopardising essential public health control efforts.”
Criminalisation will also damage the doctor/patient relationship, they add: “Health professionals can advise and assist, but their patients, if fearful of prosecution, may be unwilling to tell them if they are having difficulties avoiding unprotected sex.”
Lowbury and Kinghorn may be right. The Department of Health (DH) recently issued a public consultation on confidentiality and disclosure of patient information in cases of HIV.
It posits the situation where a doctor knows a patient with HIV is having unprotected sex with another patient and asks if it would be “appropriate…to inform the partner directly that they can report their partner to the police for reckless transmission of HIV or other serious STI?
“Would this be likely to deter people from using sexual health services?” asks the DH.
Gay.com readers who may want to give an answer can access the DH consultation here.
Meanwhile in Liverpool the 10th person in the UK to be jailed for transmitting HIV was Clive Rowlands, a 43-year old Bosnian war veteran. He was jailed after pleading guilty to infecting a 49-year-old woman during an eight-month relationship.
Rowlands said he loved her ‘very much’ and intended to marry her, and met her family, who discovered that he had HIV when they found disability benefit forms among his belongings.
Both Rowlands and his partner were psychologically fragile: the woman in the case had long-term mental health problems and was described by her family as “vulnerable” and “like a five-year-old girl.”
Rowland’s defence lawyer said his client had post-traumatic stress disorder due to his war experiences and was in denial of his illness: he maintained he had got HIV from giving someone the kiss of life, which is unheard of. However Judge Brian Lewis told Rowlands, "It is absolutely no excuse for the arrogant selfishness you displayed years later."
The woman’s family, who described Rowlands as “low, callous and dirty”, maintained he had been her first lover. However there are odd aspects to the case such as the fact that she was already on HIV drugs despite being recently infected and her brother claiming she ‘took 17 pills a day’.
George House Trust, the largest HIV organisation in the north of England, said the case raised worrying questions, in particular the quality of Rowland’s defence.
“George House Trust advises that people should not plead guilty without getting highly expert advice. A recent case in Kingston, SW London, was thrown out on the orders of the judge because the scientific evidence was shown by an expert virologist not to be good enough.”
GHT Chief Executive Michelle Reid told Gay.com: “Encouraging people to plead guilty won’t encourage public debate or testing the law in this highly contentious area.”
She called for a panel of legal experts to be set up to advise solicitors who came across an HIV case for the first time.
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More articles from Gus Cairns: www.guscairns.com
Lowbury and Kinghorn were responding to the recent Crown Prosecution Service consultation, which Gay.com reported on recently.
However a recent case in Merseyside where a psychologically-damaged ex-soldier was persuaded to plead guilty to infecting his 49-year old girlfriend, herself with mental health problems, continues to raise disturbing questions about the attitude of the judiciary to so-called ‘ADS assassins’ and the expertise of lawyers called to defend them.
In the BMJ piece, Lowbury and Kinghorn say that the threat of prosecution will deter people with HIV from being tested, or, when tested from disclosing their status to their partners.
They say: “Those who take the test may not agree to their partners being notified for fear of legal repercussions, thereby jeopardising essential public health control efforts.”
Criminalisation will also damage the doctor/patient relationship, they add: “Health professionals can advise and assist, but their patients, if fearful of prosecution, may be unwilling to tell them if they are having difficulties avoiding unprotected sex.”
Lowbury and Kinghorn may be right. The Department of Health (DH) recently issued a public consultation on confidentiality and disclosure of patient information in cases of HIV.
It posits the situation where a doctor knows a patient with HIV is having unprotected sex with another patient and asks if it would be “appropriate…to inform the partner directly that they can report their partner to the police for reckless transmission of HIV or other serious STI?
“Would this be likely to deter people from using sexual health services?” asks the DH.
Gay.com readers who may want to give an answer can access the DH consultation here.
Meanwhile in Liverpool the 10th person in the UK to be jailed for transmitting HIV was Clive Rowlands, a 43-year old Bosnian war veteran. He was jailed after pleading guilty to infecting a 49-year-old woman during an eight-month relationship.
Rowlands said he loved her ‘very much’ and intended to marry her, and met her family, who discovered that he had HIV when they found disability benefit forms among his belongings.
Both Rowlands and his partner were psychologically fragile: the woman in the case had long-term mental health problems and was described by her family as “vulnerable” and “like a five-year-old girl.”
Rowland’s defence lawyer said his client had post-traumatic stress disorder due to his war experiences and was in denial of his illness: he maintained he had got HIV from giving someone the kiss of life, which is unheard of. However Judge Brian Lewis told Rowlands, "It is absolutely no excuse for the arrogant selfishness you displayed years later."
The woman’s family, who described Rowlands as “low, callous and dirty”, maintained he had been her first lover. However there are odd aspects to the case such as the fact that she was already on HIV drugs despite being recently infected and her brother claiming she ‘took 17 pills a day’.
George House Trust, the largest HIV organisation in the north of England, said the case raised worrying questions, in particular the quality of Rowland’s defence.
“George House Trust advises that people should not plead guilty without getting highly expert advice. A recent case in Kingston, SW London, was thrown out on the orders of the judge because the scientific evidence was shown by an expert virologist not to be good enough.”
GHT Chief Executive Michelle Reid told Gay.com: “Encouraging people to plead guilty won’t encourage public debate or testing the law in this highly contentious area.”
She called for a panel of legal experts to be set up to advise solicitors who came across an HIV case for the first time.
****
More articles from Gus Cairns: www.guscairns.com
Gus Cairns, UK Gay.Com / Positive Nation Daily News
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Comments
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It makes me furious that people are too damned stupid to know their own history
05.10.2006 19:07
This whole AIDS thing is bullshit, because we ALREADY learnt this lesson before. Go read the history of public health laws with respect to sexually transmitted disease in the late 19th century. Read how do-gooders f**ked-up first time around, and how as a consequence of their early legal mistakes, we got the system of SECOND-ROUND near-perfect laws that Blair is working so very hard to destroy.
Of course, Blair is also bringing in laws to make serious criminals of people in possession of certain kinds of consenting adult pornography. Same thing again. Exploit fear, and the ignorance of a generation of adults with lousy education, but maximum arrogance.
Every brain-dead citizen proud to never have read a book screams out their RIGHT to have a say equal to (or actually greater) than those people who have gone to the trouble to learn first, in order to have an informed opinion based on previous history, and discovered fact.
Murderous dictators ALWAYS GIVE BRAIN-DEAD CROWDS OF IGNORANT LOUD-MOUTHS THE RIGHTS TO 'LYNCH' THE LOCAL 'BLACK GUY', if you understand my metaphor.
NO-ONE HAS A RIGHT TO AN OPINION ABOUT THE CONCEPT OF PUNISHING THOSE THAT TRANSMIT ILLNESS, ***UNLESS*** THEY CAN ACCURATELY DESCRIBE THE LESSONS WE LEARNT ABOUT THIS SUBJECT (AT GREAT HUMAN COST) MORE THAN ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
Why do you think Blair REALLY wants to re-invent knowledge? You cannot exterminate polpulations based on FACT. Hitler knew this- Blair knows this. Instead, you have to produce a society of pseudo-science, where the lessons of the past become the opinions of idiots, because everyone 'knows' that long-dead people are always idiots, and anyway, do YOU want to be the slave to the 'opinion' of people that no longer exist.
Magna Carta- f**k that sh*t.
Habeus Corpus- F**k that sh*t
Geneva Convention- F**k that sh*t
Human Rights for all- F**k that sh*t
Come on, be a New Reich citizen. You don't need no stinkin' books. Learning is for chumps. See someone too smart for their own good? Simple- say "f**k you, my baseless opinion is better than any of your facts, and if you disagree, Blair and I will have our boys cave your head in"
The consultation over consenting adult pornography (with BDSM themes) had so-called child charities with a long history of child abuse (including murder and rape) offering their pro-Blair opinions. Hardly suprising, since these same charities are headed by powerful members of Blair's New Reich (starting to remind you of nazi Germany yet). The consultation of undoing more than a hundred years of sensible handling of public health issues is following the exact same pattern.
Mob fear serves Blair. The truth DOES NOT. The UK judges to punish those guilty of Blair's new laws again match the vile filth found within the nazi legal system.
Blair asks YOU to demand your own undoing. Hitler asked the same of his people, and got it. At the end, Hitler cursed the German people for being worthless scum. However ungrateful, he was right, of course.
Blair's methods are of the most evil type, but they are anything but hidden. We don't just have our history, but the world to learn from. Blair proposes new laws that are provably wrong and counter-productive a thousand times over, if the purpose of the law was to make society a better place. However, Blair's laws are designed to pump pure poison into our veins, so that he can harvest a crop of hate, fear and distrust.
You will notice that 'pirate', that extremist racist pro-war New Reich agent who posts its vile propaganda under the 'excuse' of gay rights, did not post this article. Hardly suprising, since regardless of its mock pro-gay position (and the mock pro-gay position of state-run outrage!), you have NEVER seen 'pirate' post anything but pro-Blair propaganda.
Blair, like Hitler, loves his gay allies within the upper echlons of the New Reich, but considers the rest disposable assets. Blair no more cares how much harm his anti-AIDS laws will do than he cares about the harm of his anti-BDSM laws. Or, more correctly, the harm that these new laws will do is the whole point for bringing them into existence.
Gays are going to be forced onto the sex offenders register (with the full approval of 'pirate' and his Outrage! chums) for owning images showing their consenting adult friends engaging in BDSM activities). Gays are going to be jailed for being ill, and living a life as best they can (or owning the above mentioned images).
Blair brings hell, and all people could bring themselves to do to fight him was go on a protest arranged by his agents, that was reported by the press to the general population as pro-soldier ("time to go" used to fool people into thinking it was Blair that "go" referred to, but the organisers on the day turned round and said "go" referred to 'our boys' having their superior lives saved by them 'going' from Afghanistan and Iraq).
twilight