The Conversation Starts Here

This is a story I have been working on all this week. We just published on MichiganMessenger.com.

This is the first part of the story, to read the rest visit MichiganMessenger.com:

LANSING — The Michigan Department of Corrections, which oversees the operations of the state’s prisons, has prevented HIV-infected prisoners from working in food service positions since at least 1999. But legal scholars and the Michigan Department of Civil Rights argue that the policy violates non-discrimination statutes, including the Americans With Disabilities Act.

The corrections department contends that the policy is in place to protect the “safety and security” of prison facilities, despite the fact that state health officials say that HIV and AIDS can’t be transmitted through food.

“A prison holds about 1,000, 1,200 people and as those 1,000 prisoners go through for breakfast, lunch and dinner, prisoners are scooping that food onto their trays,” said MDOC spokesman Russ Marlan. “So if a prisoner was HIV-positive and sneezed onto a food item and then a prisoner ate that food item and that prisoner had a lesion in their mouth they could contract the disease.”

Marlan also used the concept of a prisoner bleeding on a radish as a potential for the spread of the virus.

“Say a prisoner cuts himself and his blood falls on a radish and somebody eats that radish and that he’s got an open lesion in his mouth, there’s a potential for him to contract that disease,” Marlan said. “As responsible corrections professionals dedicated to running a safe and secure prison system, we made the decision not to allow them (prisoners with HIV) to work in that area of prison operations.”

“We have not seen a case of HIV transmission through food,” said James McCurtis, spokesman for the Michigan Department of Community Health, which records and monitors all cases of confirmed HIV infections in the state.

Both the MDCH and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, the federal government agency responsible for tracking HIV and other diseases, stress that HIV is not transmitted through casual contact, such as through food or from toilet seats. HIV is transmitted when HIV-infected body fluids, such as blood, semen, breast milk and vaginal secretions, are exposed directly to cuts in the body through intimate activities such as sex, or sharing needles. The virus has been spread from mother to baby during birth and through breast feeding, studies show.

Dan Levy, chief legal officer of the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, said the reasoning for the policy offered by Marlan won’t stand up in court.

Again, more to the story here.

You can here my conversation with Walt Sorg of AM Lansing this morning about the proposed changes to HIV testing laws in Michigan. Here you go.

The answer to that question, if you ask Rep. Roy Schmidt of Kent county and Spectrum Health Centers of Kent county, is yes. Under new legislation filed on St. Patrick’s Day, the state’s current opt-in testing law would be revised to an opt-out testing procedure.

Yep, that’s right. If you don’t want to be tested for HIV, you would no longer have the right to presume such testing required your consent. In fact, you would have to decline HIV testing in writing, under the law. In the meantime, your doctor could send you to the lab for routine tests and include an HIV test without your consent. 

Imagine coming back to the doctor for follow up and hearing your Cholesterol is a little high, but nothing to worry about. And your glucose is off, but again nothing to worry about. Oh and you are HIV infected. Have a nice day. 

For more, check out the story I did on Michigan Messenger.

On Tuesday, the administration of President Barack Obama announced their new HIV prevention program called Act Against AIDS. But some Michigan HIV advocates are not particularly happy with what the plan does. You can read the story here, on Michigan Messenger.

And if you really want to get into the story a bit more, here is the audio (this is a WMA file and requires download, don’t worry it’s free) from my interview with Acting Director of the CDC’s Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention Dr. Richard Wolitski.

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