EDGE Los Angeles

Reps. Barbara Lee and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen have introduced legislation to repeal the HIV Discrimination Act, outdated laws that criminalize people with HIV, regardless of intent.

A student running for the University o Huston-Downtown’s vice president was the victim of a smear campaign that revealed his HIV status to the public.

Instead of protecting from malicious intentional infection, criminalizing HIV has only had a negative effect on public health -- not to mention HIV-positive accused individuals.

Although many people can now live long, healthy lives with HIV, the stigma remains, keeping people from getting tested and fomenting violence and discrimination. Groups like The Stigma Project work to neutralize this stigma.

In China, hospitals routinely reject people with HIV for surgery out of fear of exposure to the virus or harm to their reputations. Now, as more people become more outraged, people with HIV are insisting they be treated fairly.

Policies that criminalize HIV non-disclosure are meant to reduce transmission, but instead can prevent people from getting tested, for fear of arrest. The non-profit Sero is working to educate people on how these laws play out.

For HIV-positive MSM, Internet dating and hook-ups just got easier with Volttage, a website founded by AIDS activist Jack Mackenroth that breaks down the stereotypes that haunt PLWHAs.

Canada’s highest court handed down a monumental ruling that may affect decisions here when it ruled that people with a low rate of HIV who use condoms don’t have to tell sex partners they are HIV+.

AIDS activist and former Project Runway contestant Jack Mackenroth, said he hopes to create not only a forum where gay HIV-positive men can meet, but also a database of information, support and resources for thel HIV-positive community.

A 14-year-old boy and his mother will receive $700,000 from the settlement of an AIDS discrimination lawsuit against a private boarding school that refused to enroll him because he’s HIV-positive.