Deirdre Shesgreen, Senior Communications Officer
Center for Global Health Policy
703-740-4954 (office)
202-330-3890 (cell)
dshesgreen@idsociety.org       

January 19, 2010

U.S. Physician-Scientists and Public Health Experts Decry Anti-Gay Bill in Uganda
Disease experts say legislation is an affront to human rights, a setback to HIV/AIDS treatment gains

WASHINGTON—Nearly 1,500 leading physicians, nurses, and public health experts have joined together to urge Ugandan political leaders to reject the Anti-Homosexuality Bill under consideration in that country’s Parliament.

The bill would impose life imprisonment, or even death, for same-gender consensual sex acts and threatens imprisonment of individuals who do not report suspected homosexual acts to the police. The proposed law has sparked international condemnation, and there is growing pressure from world leaders on Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni to stop the bill.

HIV experts in particular are concerned that the legislation would deal a major blow to Uganda’s successful AIDS programs, deterring an already vulnerable at-risk population from seeking HIV services out of fear that it could land them on death row, as well as intimidating the health care workers who serve these populations.

“This legislation will violate Ugandans’ human rights and will impede successful efforts in HIV prevention by promoting misinformation suggesting that HIV transmission in Uganda is primarily due to male homosexual behavior. It will also create a chilling effect on patients’ willingness to seek HIV testing and prevention services and jeopardizes the fragile gains Uganda has made in combating the AIDS epidemic,” said Kenneth Mayer, MD, FIDSA, co-chair of the Center for Global Health Policy’s Scientific Advisory Committee and professor at Brown University, where he directs the AIDS program.

“This proposal would needlessly undermine public health in Uganda by further stigmatizing people with HIV or at risk of infection and by severely compromising the patient-health provider relationship,” said Michael Saag, MD, FIDSA, chairman of the HIV Medicine Association’s board and a chief of infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

These concerns prompted a broad coalition of physicians, scientists, and other health care leaders from the U.S. and around the world to sign a letter urging President Museveni to use his authority to kill the proposal. The letter notes that Uganda has “served as an example” for other countries in the battle against the HIV/AIDS pandemic. “These efforts have been successful because of the free flow of people and information and dynamic, open civil and scientific discussion,” the letter states. The “insidious” anti-gay bill has “no place in a free society.”  

The letter urges President Museveni to use his influence to stop the legislation, thereby setting an example of “a free country advancing the safety, health and well being of all of its people.” 

Click here to read the full letter. For more information on this topic or to arrange an interview with an HIV/AIDS expert, please contact Deirdre Shesgreen at 703-740-4954 or dshesgreen@idsociety.org.

The Center for Global Health Policy is an organization of physicians and scientists dedicated to promoting the effective use of U.S. funding for addressing the global HIV/AIDS and TB epidemics by providing scientific and policy information to policymakers, federal agencies, non-governmental organizations, and the media. The Center is a project of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the HIV Medicine Association.

HIVMA is the professional home for more than 3,600 physicians, scientists and other health care professionals dedicated to the field of HIV/AIDS. Nested within IDSA, HIVMA promotes quality in HIV care and advocates policies that ensure a comprehensive and humane response to the AIDS pandemic informed by science and social justice. All three organizations are based in Arlington, Va.