Ending overly broad HIV criminalization: Canadian scientists and clinicians stand for justice

Abstract

In Canada, people living with HIV who do not disclose their HIV status prior to sexual acts risk prosecution for aggravated sexual assault even if they have sex with a condom or while having a low (or undetectable) viral load, they had no intent to transmit HIV, and no transmission occurred. In 2013, six distinguished Canadian HIV scientists and clinicians took ground-breaking action to advance justice by co-authoring the “Canadian consensus statement on HIV and its transmission in the context of the criminal law.” This effort was born out of the belief that the application of criminal law to HIV non-disclosure was being driven by a poor appreciation of the science of HIV. More than 75 HIV scientists and clinicians Canada-wide have now endorsed the statement, agreeing that “[they] have a professional and ethical responsibility to assist those in the criminal justice system to understand and interpret current medical and scientific evidence regarding HIV.” As some 61 countries have adopted laws that specifically allow for HIV criminalization, and prosecutions for HIV non-disclosure, exposure and transmission have been reported in at least 49 countries, the authors hope that others around the world will take similar action.

‘… if U equals U what does the second U mean?’: sexual minority men’s accounts of HIV undetectability and untransmittable scepticism

“…Building on the important theme of stigma-reduction, Eisinger, Dieffenbach, and Fauci (2019, 452) note the legal implications of HIV undetectability and how conceptually U ¼ U: 'bridges the best of biomedical science with current concepts in behavioural and social science by removing the sense of fear and guilt that a person may be harming someone else, as well as the feeling of self-imposed and external stigma that many people with HIV experience'. In Canada-which has the shameful distinction of being a global leader in criminally prosecuting cases of alleged HIV non-disclosure-undetectability has emerged as a scientific construct that has recently entered into criminal law discourse (Kazatchkine, Bernard, and Eba 2015;Housefather 2019). This move speaks not only to the significance of undetectability as an important concept mobilised to help limit the overly broad use of the criminal law, but also to the broader point of how this scientific idea has gradually and differentially moved overtime across discursive communities.…”

Prevalence and predictors of facing a legal obligation to disclose HIV serostatus to sexual partners among people living with HIV who inject drugs in a Canadian setting:a cross-sectional analysis

“…55 This statement has since been endorsed by more than 75 scientists and clinicians across Canada. 56 It must be acknowledged that many ACCESS participants will disclose their HIV status to sexual partners, thus will not be at risk of criminal charges regardless of condom use or viral profile. Disclosure practices are not measured within the ACCESS survey; however, a cross-sectional survey of treatment-experienced people living with HIV in Vancouver found that most (73%) of the participants self-reported disclosing their HIV serostatus to all new sexual partners.…”

Toward a Critical Criminology of HIV Criminalization

“…Prison policies may affect access to medical care and reduce or encourage sexual violence in the incarcerated setting (Goyer 2002). Furthermore, while most examples in this article are from American and Canadian jurisdictions, HIV criminalization is a global phenomenon across more than seventy countries, many in the Western world (Dej and Kilty 2012;Grace 2015;Kazatchkine et al 2015).…”