Hiding HIV/AIDS shouldn't be a crime, doctors argue

Prosecuting HIV-positive people for not disclosing their status to their sexual partners stigmatizes those with HIV/ AIDS and those most at risk of contracting the virus and doesn't protect people from becoming infected, a respected Canadian doctor argues in an article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

In an opinion piece published Monday, Dr. Julio Montaner and two of his colleagues at the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/ AIDS at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver write that although "remarkable medical advances" in the treatment of HIV/AIDS have made it a manageable illness, the number of people charged with and prosecuted for allegedly exposing their sexual partners to the virus has increased.

"Canada now ranks among the world leaders in the rate of such prosecutions," Montaner and his colleagues, M-J Milloy and Thomas Kerr, write in the article titled Ending Canada's HIV trials.

Two cases of people charged with sexual assault and aggravated sexual assault for not informing their partners of their HIV status will be heard at the Supreme Court on Feb. 8.

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