Pentagon and Army sued over decades-old policy barring recruits with HIV

Times & medicine change...
..."The lawsuit describes the ban on HIV-positive recruits as “incompatible” with modern medical advancements. The policy, the suit notes, has been in place since 1991 — years before the development of groundbreaking medical innovations that eventually transformed HIV from a death sentence into a mostly nontransmittable, manageable condition, with early detection and the right treatment.

Because of medical breakthroughs over the past decades, a 25-year-old living with HIV who is diagnosed early and receives appropriate treatment has approximately the same life expectancy as a 25-year-old living without HIV, the lawsuit says. A study published in 2014 in the Journal of the International AIDS Society found HIV patients who are successfully treated with antiretroviral therapy have normal life expectancies."...