Iowa’s battle against the HIV pandemic is becoming more fierce, said Jeff Meier, a UI associate professor of internal medicine.

And today’s 2009 HIV Interdisciplinary Conference will highlight Iowa’s fight.

A variety of medical, legal, and academic professionals — including doctors from Iowa, Philadelphia, New York City, and Washington, D.C. — will convene at hotelVetro, 201 S. Linn St.

“The number of new infections in Iowa has gone up in recent years, and the number of people living with HIV is climbing at a rate that exceeds Iowa’s population growth,” Meier said.

But that more and more people are surviving with HIV is a source of optimism, he noted.

“If patients get into care early and take their medications, they are likely to have fairly healthy and much longer-lasting lives,” Meier said.

However, he said, late diagnosis is a problem in Iowa.

“Roughly 40 percent of infected Iowans have already developed advanced disease [AIDS] within a year,” he said. “HIV can be asymptomatic for years, and in that time, it’s already eaten away much of the immune system.”

Besides management of the virus, other topics for discussion include mental health, pain management, and Iowa’s criminal transmission and disclosure laws — which Meier said are “under fire.”

“Especially people with HIV/AIDS feel the laws are harsh and unfair,” he said. “If they don’t disclose, it’s a felony of up to 20 years — regardless of safe-sex practices or if their chances of infecting someone are less than winning the Powerball.”

Scott Burris, a professor of law at Temple University, will address the controversy surrounding transmission and disclosure laws.

“The criminalization of HIV is a global phenomenon, but Iowa’s law is certainly among the harsher in terms of punishment,” he said, questioning if the laws actually do any good.

Burris said practicing safe sex is everyone’s responsibility, since sometimes infected people do not even know they are infected. Thus, transmitting the infection shouldn’t be equated with malicious crimes like stabbings and shootings, he said.

“I don’t think the laws serve any good purpose,” he said. “They are stigmatizing, and they strike fear.”

And social stigma and fear make HIV-positive people vulnerable to mental-health problems, said Milton Wainberg, an associate clinical professor of psychiatry visiting from Columbia University.

“Depression, mania, and substance abuse are more common once HIV is present,” Wainberg said. “Having both HIV and a psychiatric problem increases the mortality rate.”

But HIV/AIDS deaths are down overall, according to Meier. Yet for him, this is also a cause of concern.

Since HIV is much more treatable with recent advancements, it has resulted in a troubling “feeling of complacency” among younger age groups.

“AIDS used to be a death sentence,” he said. “A decade ago, people were seeing their friends die horrible deaths, but this generation hasn’t been exposed to that.”