HIV

(New York, NY, May 23, 2008) — Lambda Legal has submitted formal comments to the Social Security Administration (SSA) outlining ways to improve its criteria for evaluating HIV disability so that they reflect the real difficulties faced by people living with the disease.

(New York, February 15, 2008) — New State Department guidelines lift the agency's blanket ban under which candidates who have HIV were barred from becoming Foreign Service Officers.

(New York, December 10, 2007) — Lambda Legal is opposing regulations proposed by the Department of Homeland Security on Issuance of a Visa and Authorization for Temporary Admission into the United States for Certain Nonimmigrant Aliens Infected with HIV. The suggested regulations continue the stigmatizing discrimination against persons living with HIV, create greater barriers to their entry into the United States and significantly curtail their legal rights once here.

(New York, November 28, 2007) — This World AIDS Day, December 1, 2007, Lambda Legal joins the National Black Gay Men's Advocacy Coalition and the National Coalition for LGBT Health in calling on our nation's LGBT organizations to place an aggressive response to the HIV epidemic at the center of their agendas.

Statement from Bebe Anderson, HIV Project Director at Lambda Legal:

(Washington, D.C., December 5, 2005) — Today Lambda Legal will file its opening brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in a lawsuit on behalf of a man who was denied employment as a Foreign Service Officer by the U.S. State Department because he is HIV positive.

(Washington, D.C., February 24, 2005) — The United States Department of State illegally prohibits anyone with HIV from being hired as a Foreign Service Officer, regardless of the applicant's qualifications or health status, Lambda Legal will argue in federal court Friday. In Lambda Legal's federal lawsuit seeking to remove the ban on Foreign Service applicants with HIV, leading health experts have filed papers supporting a medically justified approach for assessing Foreign Service applicants. 

(Washington, D.C., September 3, 2003) — Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund filed a lawsuit in federal court today arguing that the State Department illegally prohibits anyone with HIV from being hired as a Foreign Service officer, regardless of applicant's qualifications or health status.

(New York, October 4, 2007) — Lambda Legal, AIDS Foundation of Chicago and the Center for HIV Law and Policy are sending a set of 15 HIV testing principles to help guide the 23 state and local public health departments, announced last week, that will receive funding by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to conduct increased HIV testing campaigns.

(New York, June 26, 2007) --- Today, Lambda Legal, AIDS Foundation of Chicago, and the Center for HIV Law and Policy launched a broadly-endorsed set of fundamental principles for HIV testing in honor of National HIV Testing Day, which is tomorrow, June 27.

Legal, medical, and service providers created a single set of principles that should guide HIV testing programs, emphasizing the fundamental principles that HIV testing must always be informed, voluntary, confidential, and supported by health care.

(Dallas, March 21, 2007) — Lambda Legal Senior Staff Attorney Ken Upton and Lambda Legal’s Proyecto Igualdad Outreach Associate, Francisco Dueñas, will address community members and interested case workers on legal matters concerning HIV and immigration, sexual orientation and immigration, and civil rights issues affecting people living with HIV.