AIDS - the time for changes in law and policy is now

Existing policies on HIV testing were developed decades ago when HIV infection led nearly inevitably to AIDS and death. Since then rapid clinical progress has occurred. HIV infected people with access to life-preserving care and treatment no longer experience an existential threat to their life and wellbeing. HIV infection today, at least in North America and Western Europe, represents a chronic but manageable illness. Moreover, with treatment most infected people are rendered, to all intents and purposes, noninfectious. In this paper, we discuss the ethical, policy and legal implications of the changing clinical picture of HIV/AIDS. In particular, we propose significant changes to existing HIV testing policies as well as to policies pertaining to the criminalisation of infected people's sexual behaviour in North America and Western Europe.