Kansas Bill Seeks To Quarantine ? -Positive People

By Annie-Rose Strasser and Andrea Peterson

State legislators in Kansas are considering a bill that would allow the quarantine of people with AIDS or ? . Kansas House Bill 2183 was originally created to serve first responders who might be at risk of contracting ? through their work. But the Kansas Department of Health and Environment rewrote the language in the bill, broadly deregulating when isolation can take place and opening up the possibility that ? positive people could be quarantined.

Activists fear this oversight could be used to openly discriminate. “Our state’s health department is willing to roll back a 25-year old civil rights protection,” Thomas Witt, the Executive Director of the Kansas Equality Coalition, told ThinkProgress. “LGBT Kansans are already subject to harassment and legal discrimination, and removing the existing ? quarantine exemption from law leaves vulnerable Kansans at risk of discriminatory, unfair treatment by local officials.”

Other activists have also expressed concern that Kansans might not understand how ? can be spread, and have implicit biases thanks to a lack of knowledge. “We live in a very conservative state and I’m afraid there are still many people, especially in rural Kansas, that have inadequate education and understanding concerning ? /AIDS,” Cody Patton, of sexual health group Positive Directions told ? Star News. This theory was also evidenced by a debate earlier this year, when the Kansas health department eliminated ? testing for most counties in the state. The Kansas senate has approved the ? quarantine bill, and it looks likely to pass. During a hearing about the measure on Wednesday, however, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment said it would be willing to work with groups to fix what they considered problematic aspects of current proposal.