Protecting Patients from Discrimination — The Americans with Disabilities Act and HIV Infection

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Abstract
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed in 1990 to expand the reach of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and make discrimination on the basis of disability unlawful.1 The wheelchair symbol has become a universal sign of disability, but there are, of course, many types of disability that have been the basis of discrimination over the years, including blindness, deafness, epilepsy, cancer, heart disease, and mental retardation. AIDS is a disability under the ADA, and most commentators have assumed that infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) also qualifies as a disability under this act. It was not, however, . . .