U.S. to Lift HIV Entry Ban in 2010: Obama

The Ryan White Act is named after Ryan White, who contracted AIDS in 1984, when he was 13 years old. He contracted the virus via a blood transfusion and died in 1990 at the age of 18. During his short life, he was an HIV / AIDS advocate, and advanced the education of Americans on the disease, working to reduce the mythologies around it.

The Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act authorizes a 5 percent annual increase in federal support over the next four years. Funding under the law is scheduled to rise from more than $2.5 billion in fiscal year 2010 to nearly $3 billion in fiscal year 2013.

The ban is expected to be lifted at the beginning of 2010. HIV was first added in 1987 to the list of diseases preventing people from entering the U.S.

President Obama said: "We lead the world when it comes to helping stem the Aids pandemic, yet we are one of only a dozen countries that still bar people with HIV from entering our own country.

"On Monday, my administration will publish a final rule that eliminates the travel ban effective just after the New Year."

President Obama noted that the ban was originally enacted as a response to fear over the disease. It was enacted in 1987 as an amendment offered by Senator Jesse Helms, (R-N.C.). At that time, there was much mythology about HIV spread by simple contact. The ban was strengthened in 1993.

President George W. Bush began the process of eliminating the ban last year when he supported legislation that repealed the statute on which the ban was based. The legislation was passed by Congress in July 2008, but the ban remained.

An additional side effect of the lifting of the ban: those applying to become residents in the U.S. will no longer be required to take an AIDS test, once the lifting takes place.