Fact Sheet

In September 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published updated guidelines on voluntary HIV testing in health care settings. The CDC now recommends that medical providers offer all persons ages 13 to 64 voluntary HIV testing without risk assessments as a routine part of medical care.

Increasing the numbers of people living with undiagnosed HIV who get tested, so that they will learn their status and get into care earlier, has our support. But expanded testing should be done with specific, written consent and after some counseling, for the reasons summarized below...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in September 2006 issued new recommendations for expanded testing of people for HIV. We support the CDC's goal of increasing the numbers of people living with undiagnosed HIV who get tested, so that they will learn their status and get into care earlier.

Because an estimated 500,000 people with HIV are not in regular care and an estimated 1 in 4 people with HIV do not know that they have HIV, there are forceful and compelling arguments for HIV policy change on the federal and state levels.

In 2007, the State of Oregon enacted the Oregon Equality Act (also known as SB2), the landmark law to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people from discrimination.

Lambda Legal has a long history of fighting in the courts for the rights of people living with HIV. This includes winning the first HIV discrimination lawsuit in the country, filing legal briefs in major U.S. Supreme Court cases involving the Americans with Disabilities Act, including Bragdon v. Abbott, Univ. of Alabama v. Garrett, and Toyota Motor Mfg., Kentucky v.

On October 25, 2006, in Lewis v. Harris, Lambda Legal won a declaration from the New Jersey Supreme Court that barring same-sex couples from the rights and benefits of marriage violated the constitutional promise of equality.

An awareness of the fallibility of the legal system and the effects of bias on the courts has led Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund to oppose the death penalty as an irreversible and harsh misuse of government power.

Couples in South Carolina have been waiting a long time to marry and, based on the actions of state officials, have been forced to wait longer than couples who live in the other states in the Fourth Circuit. Because we know that these changes can be confusing, it is likely many families will have questions about what it all means.

On September 17, 2013, the Department of Health & Human Services issued SHO # 13-006, guidance for State Health Officials and Medicaid Directors on implications of the Windsor ruling for Medicaid and the Children's Health Program (CHIP).