The issue of HIV and AIDS is occasionally raised as
a reason for maintaining the current Don’t Ask,
Don’t Tell (DADT) policy. The underlying assumption
in this reasoning is that allowing gay, lesbian and
bisexual (GLB) troops to serve in the military would
increase the number of HIV+ service members and
create an unacceptable risk for HIV- (and presumably
heterosexual) service members. A corollary to this
assumption is that a significant number of current
and future GLB troops are or would be become sero-positive
for HIV, and the risk of transmission of HIV through
emergency battlefield transfusions of fresh whole
blood would increase if GLB troops were allowed to
serve. So strong were these assumptions in the early
years of DADT that the FY96 Defense Appropriations
Act included legislation that required the discharge
of any HIV+ troops; but Congress repealed that
provision the next year as unnecessary. Since that
time, none of the dire assumptions about GLB troops
has been supported by factual evidence.
GLB troops have been legally serving in the military
under DADT since 1993. If their presence in the
workforce created a risk for the increased incidence
of HIV+ military troops, the Department of Defense (DoD)
would have already seen evidence of such an increase
in the seventeen years since the DADT law was
enacted. Since all recruits and officer accessions
are tested for HIV, and since all troops are tested
every two years for the HIV virus, DoD medical data
on sero-conversion of troops from HIV- to HIV+
should have shown an increase in HIV prevalence in
the active duty workforce. Such an increase has not
occurred. In fact, the
U.S. Military HIV
Research Program (USMHRP)
published a paper in December 2007 that stated the
following: “The
incidence of new infections in all three services
has remained constant over the past decade at
approximately 350 each year.” Thus, despite the
legal presence of GLB troops in the military for the
past 17 years, no significant increase in HIV
infections has occurred.
The assumption
that GLB troops would be the predominant source of
new HIV infections is also false. The USMHRP stated
the following in the paper previously cited: “The
primary risk for deployment-associated infection is
heterosexual exposure with the endemic population.
These infections are occurring in the militaries’
highly trained troop population in senior enlisted
and junior officers.” Since HIV+ troops (either GLB
or heterosexual) are not eligible for deployment,
the risk of new infections as a result of
battlefield transfusions of fresh whole blood is
exceedingly small. And since most new HIV infections
are occurring during deployments, and that
heterosexual troops are the predominant source of
these new infections, the assumption that GLB troops
would disproportionately increase the risk of
battlefield transfusion-related sero-conversion is
false.
Finally, it is
also worth noting that the U.S. population with the
lowest level of HIV infections and HIV sero-conversions
are lesbian women. Lesbian military troops are thus
at a far lower risk of HIV infection than any other
category of military personnel.
HIV / AIDS is a
risk to anyone, GLB or heterosexual, who engages in
sexual activity known to be associated with
increased risk of infection. The military routinely
screens its troops for HIV infection, and HIV+
troops are not eligible for overseas deployment;
many are medically discharged. Thus HIV / AIDS is
not a rational argument for retaining the DADT law.
GLB troops have served their nation under DADT for
over 17 years, yet the incidence of HIV infections
has remained stable. Allowing these GLB troops to
serve with the same honor and dignity afforded their
heterosexual counterparts by repealing DADT would be
exceedingly unlikely to alter HIV incidence rates.
© 2010 Gay Military Signal
