Judge says military can’t reject HIV-positive recruits

A federal judge in Virginia ruled Tuesday that the Department of Defense may not outright reject military recruits who have asymptomatic HIV. The Pentagon’s policy barring recruits with undetectable HIV viral loads is irrational and hampers its own military recruitment goals, wrote U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema.

In 2022, Brinkema axed a different section of the military’s code that barred asymptomatic HIV-positive service members from achieving certain ranks or deploying abroad. The court already established that HIV-positive service members with minimal viral loads are capable of all of their military duties, she noted in the order. Now the Pentagon must allow similarly situated civilians to demonstrate the same by allowing their enlistment, she wrote.

The decision came after three plaintiffs sued the Department of Defense over the policy. This ruling is a victory for all people living with HIV who want to serve, said plaintiff Isaiah Wilkins. He is eager to enlist without the threat of a crippling discriminatory policy, Wilkins added.

Doesn’t this put other soldiers at risk? HIV is spread through open-tissue contact with an infected person’s genital secretions, blood, and breast milk, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If one has HIV, there are medications to suppress the virus to the point it may not show up on a screening test. The risk of a person transmitting HIV when the virus is undetectable in his or her blood is extremely low, according to the CDC.

Dig deeper: Read Juliana Chan Erikson’s report on the rise in sexually transmitted infections among older Americans.