News Release
For Immediate Release
May 23, 2001
 

Greenleaf Aids Transmission Bill Approved by Senate 

HARRISBURG --A measure sponsored by Senator Stewart J. Greenleaf, R-Montgomery/Bucks, to establish a third degree felony for knowingly infecting an unsuspecting person with HIV/AIDS was approved unanimously by the Senate.

Senate Bill 221 would provide for prosecution of a person who willfully exposes another to HIV/AIDS through sexual activity or needle sharing when the victim has not been informed of the risk.  Current state law is limited to enhanced penalties for prostitution committed by an HIV positive person.  However, at least 27 states have enacted laws with provisions similar to those in the Greenleaf bill.

Interest in such laws was intensified several years ago when it was revealed that a New York drug dealer had sexual relations with 28 young women--many of them high school students--without telling them that he was HIV positive.  Ten of these women later tested positive for the disease.

"Deliberately exposing unsuspecting people to a potentially fatal disease through sexual activity or needle sharing should not go unpunished. This is an offense against each victim and against the community because an uninformed person to whom the disease is passed may pass it unknowingly to others," Greenleaf said.  "The perpetrator who knows he or she has AIDS and does not inform potential sexual partners or needle sharers of that fact should be penalized for putting the lives of others at great risk."