Update the HIV law

Gazette Editorial Board

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It's time for legislators to take another look at Iowa's HIV transmission law - to update the law and penalties to better reflect the times and advances in treatment.

Iowa has one of the country's toughest criminal HIV transmission laws - making it a Class B felony for a knowingly HIV-positive person to engage another person in activities that could transmit the disease without first disclosing their HIV status.

Since the law was passed in 1998, 37 people have been charged with criminal transmission of HIV in Iowa, according to numbers recently reported by Iowa Public Radio and the non-profit Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism.

Those charges have yielded 22 convictions with sentences of up to 25 years in prison and life on the state sex-offender registry, even though actual transmission of the disease

was documented in only one case, according to the news groups.

It's critical that people with HIV or any communicable disease be upfront with potential partners about their status, but we agree with advocates who argue Iowa's criminal penalties for failing to do so are too harsh, and could yield some potentially negative side effects.

Because a person can be charged with criminal transmission only if they know they are HIV-positive, the

law might actually deter

a person from being tested -

a delay that can take decades

off an HIV-infected person's

life expectancy, even with today's more effective treatments.

Even eliminating a criminal transmission law wouldn't mean that people who intentionally exposed intimate partners to HIV would go unpunished. Victims always could turn to civil courts for relief.

Thirty-four states have some kind of criminal transmission laws, but advocates say Iowa's is one of the harshest.

According to figures from the Positive Justice Project, our state is second only to Tennessee in the number of criminal prosecutions under such laws - despite our state's relatively low infection rate.

A bill that would have repealed Iowa's criminal transmission law died in subcommittee last legislative session.

Members of the Community HIV & Hepatitis Advocates of Iowa Network, which championed that bill, have said they'll try again.

Lawmakers should listen closely to their case for change, and at least make reasonable revisions to the law.

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