The Toxic Killer

The October 5 Supreme Court ruling on HIV liability in sexual relations has been greeted as a huge disappointment by those with HIV.  They feel unjustly stigmatized by their HIV status.  Their argument is that medical science has progressed to the point where it has made HIV a manageable inconvenience, not the killer it once was. 

That, in transmitting HIV to others they become afflicted with a life-long disease hugely complicating their lives seems not to account for much, to them.

"Paradoxically this has coincided with new scientific information about the actual risk of HIV transmission, the effectiveness of medications in preventing HIV transmission, and improvements in HIV treatment that have allowed most people with HIV to lead healthy lives", is how Mark Tyndall, professor of Medicine and head of Infectious Diseases at the University of Ottawa put it.

The elemental question remains: Should not partners in sex be made aware that they risk contracting a life-long disease if they consummate the sex act with an HIV-infected partner?  Should there not be a moral obligation by an HIV-infected individual to relay that information to a prospective sex partner? 

And then there is the notion that most people are really decent, and would never harm others intentionally.

The Supreme Court did rule that with a low HIV transmission load, and the use of a condom it made sense there would be very low risk of infection.  Even this exception, however, does not satisfy people like Mark Tyndall, who holds that disclosure and criminalization would be harmful to those within society who are directly affected. 

It would discourage them from disclosing their HIV status if they could be charged with assault. 

Not that it might dissuade them from proceeding to have sex with someone to whom they have not divulged their condition, knowing that they could be charged with assault.  A peculiar interpretation.  And now, a week later, an HIV -positive man who boasted repeatedly that it was his intention to infect as many sex partners as he could, convincing them that condom use could lead to cancer, is on trial.

That man, Steven Paul Boone is charged with attempted murder.  He had written in online chats that he had "lost count" of the number of HIV-negative men he'd had sex with, without informing them of his condition.  Currently on trial on charges of attempted murder, aggravated assault and administering a noxious substance, the court has much evidence to consider.

He had pleaded not guilty to all charges.  "Mr. Boone intentionally acted in a way that he knew could result in the deaths of his sexual partners.  He exposed all of his sexual partners to a realistic possibility of infection with a fatal disease.  He tried and succeeded in endangering the lives of his sexual partners.

"This case is not about pointing the finger at someone because of their sexual orientation of because they have a terrible or terminal disease.  Mr. Boone's status as HIV-positive is important because this case is about Mr. Boone's intention to surreptitiously infect as many sexual partners as he could with that fatal disease", charged prosecutor Louise Tansey-Miller.

He did, in fact, infect two of his sex partners.  Whether any more of the hundreds with whom he had unprotected sex, including a 17-year-old that he boasted to a friend he'd had sex with "over and over", without informing him of his status, will discover that they too are infected is left to fortune and the future.