Thursday, May 25, 2000 Jail won't deter HIV lovers
Fortunately, most of us get over the lies, patch up our broken hearts and life goes on. But what happens when the hurt is forever? What happens when your lover kills you softly with an invisible weapon - the HIV virus? As far as the justice system is concerned, the issue is clear. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in 1998 that failing to tell a sex partner you have AIDS or HIV can amount to an assault. And in the past week, two HIV-positive men were jailed for deliberately infecting their girlfriends with the virus. In Winnipeg, Raymond Peter Miron, 31, pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated assault and was imprisoned for eight years. He deceived four women about having the virus and ignored two public health orders to stop having unprotected sex. Two of the women later tested positive for HIV. In St. John's, Nfld., Harold Lewis Williams, 40, was jailed for 5 1/2 years for aggravated assault for failing to tell his girlfriend he had the virus. She, too, became infected. For the victims of these sweet-talking bounders, it's a lesson learned too late. You really can't trust anyone - especially a man in the throes of passion who doesn't want to use a condom. As for the offenders, it's unlikely jail will convince them to reform their behaviour. They didn't give a damn before and they probably won't when they get out - if they live that long. At least they're behind bars for a while. The challenge for society is how to deter other HIV-positive people from engaging in reckless behaviour that endangers the lives of others. It's not an easy task. Henry Cuerrier, the man whose case went to the Supreme Court, expressed quite succinctly the selfish callousness of people under a death sentence who aren't bothered by the consequences of their conduct. Cuerrier was the Squamish, B.C., man who was told by a public health nurse to inform his sex partners he had HIV and to always use a condom. He retorted: "If I tell one person that in this little town, I'll never have a sex life again. I can't do that." Now there aren't a lot of people out there like that. The Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network has only tracked about 25 cases in which an HIV-positive person has been charged criminally for conduct that carries a risk of transmission. But then there are the HIV-positive people who ignore public health orders. Only a handful of infectious people a year in Alberta are confined under Public Health Act isolation orders for refusing to comply with conditions. But Dr. Brent Friesen, Calgary's medical officer of health, predicts more and more people will have to be apprehended because of the growing number of injection drug users and hookers with HIV. The problem is there is nowhere to put them. If they're not physically or mentally ill, a hospital is inappropriate. So the regional health authorities are placing recalcitrant HIV-positive people in group homes and spending thousands of dollars a year on 24-hour supervision. There is no one currently detained under the Public Health Act in Edmonton but an HIV-infected Calgarian has been confined for more than a year, says Friesen. What's needed is a provincewide system that will provide detained HIV-positive people with the intensive counselling and secure environment required for them to change their behaviour, he adds. At the same time, you'd better wonder whose bed your lover's boots have been under.  TORONTO
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