Clarifying Changes In ADA Act May Help HIV Persons

Eighteen years after the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed, clarifying changes designed in part to benefit those living with HIV have amended the Act's coverage. Changes take effect January 1st 2009.

To be clear, much about the ADA has not changed. Companies with 15 or more employees are still prohibited from discriminating against a qualified individual because of a disability. Likewise, employers must still provide reasonable accommodations to qualified disabled individuals, in so far as the accommodation does not create an undue hardship.

However, because of the Act's relatively vague definition of disability, employers have often found it difficult to determine who is covered, and who is not. The amendment attempts to clarify that as well as overturning previous U.S. Supreme court decisions that had served to insulate and protect employers by restricting who are considered disabled under the act.

The new amendment expands and clarifies the definition of "disability" in serval ways.

It asserts that even when a persons illness has been arrested by drugs (ie retrovirals), the person is still considered disabled.

The ADA has always defined a disability as a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a "major life activity". The new amendment clarifies and broadens that definition to include caring for oneself, performing manual tasks, seeing, hearing, eating, sleeping, walking, standing, lifting, bending, speaking, breathing, learning, reading, concentrating, thinking, communicating, and working.

Congress also created a subset of "major life activities" - "major bodily functions", that includes (in part) functions of the immune system and normal cell growth which seems to indicate intent to confirm that persons with HIV and AIDS are covered under the ADA.

The amendment carves out a notable exception however. It clarifies that employers do not have to accommodate someone who is only "regarded as" having a disability. Although discrimination is still prohibited against persons who are dsabled, Congress recognized that it doesn't make sense to obligate employers to accommodate for an impairment that is only "regarded as" being a disability, rather than being an actual disability. Courtesy Zanesville Times Recorder.