By Matt Simonette

Staff writer

A bill sponsored by Illinois state Rep. Sara Feigenholtz (D-Chicago) that would have repealed a state law requiring local departments of health to notify school principals if a student tested positive for HIV was defeated 62-43 in the Illinois House March 4.

“I was really surprised,” Feigenholtz said the following day. “There is obviously a tremendous amount of education that needs to be done about HIV infection.”

Under Illinois law, when a student tests positive for HIV, the state or local department of health must notify the student’s school principal. The principal, in turn, must notify the school district superintendent and, if necessary, may notify the school nurse. They may also notify anyone else they deem necessary, as long as the student’s identity is kept secret.

Feigenholtz and AIDS activists maintain that the law compromises the student’s right to privacy. The federal Health Insurance Portability and Accounting Act, which regulates the privacy of health records, does not apply in matters when states mandate notification.

Legislators opposing Feigenholtz’s bill cited student safety as their paramount concern.

Rep. David Reis (R-Willow Hill), who voted against the bill, told the Springfield Journal-Register, “If my son is playing on the basketball court with another boy (who is HIV-positive) who has a bloody nose, we want to be able to in a polite way make sure the other kids don’t get infected with HIV. We’re talking about a lifelong virus that could be preventable if that principal knew that the child was HIV-positive.”

Feigenholtz said those and similar remarks led her to believe that her colleagues need to meet and hear from young people whose lives have been impacted by HIV/AIDS.

“One of the things we’ll have to have is some one-on-one about this. It’s a learning curve issue,” Feigenholtz said. “We need to start sharing (young peoples’) stories.”

She said that she would start working on resurrecting the legislation immediately.

“There’s never anything such as a dead bill. There are too many issues here that are not going to go away,” Feigenholtz said.