Man resists treatment for HIV daughter

A BRITISH man whose three-year-old daughter is HIV positive today told how he is resisting attempts by authorities in Australia to have her treated for the condition.

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said he does not want the child to be treated with conventional anti-retroviral therapy and wants to return to the UK so she can undergo alternative treatment.

He and his partner, who was also HIV positive and has since died, fled Britain in 1999 with their daughter to avoid a court order which ruled the child must be tested for HIV. The child has since tested positive for the condition, which is believed to cause Aids.

The man said police in the state of Victoria told him he was free to go but said they would take his daughter away from him. He has also broken a court order which said he could not leave the area where he lives.

He said: "I broke the court order because I was trying to return to the UK, and I had a ticket to return to the UK, and I was going to the consulate in Sydney to try to get passports back so that we could return to the United Kingdom.

"The doctors in the United Kingdom are not advocating that my daughter should be treated with the therapy that they're talking about in this one state by this one doctor."

A doctor in Victoria has said the girl must be given anti-retroviral therapy, which her father believes would build up resistance. "This is why in every instance it is up to an adult to choose if and when they should have this treatment.

"It is only in this particular case as far as the UK is concerned whereby the right of a parent to make the informed choice as to what medical treatment their child should receive is taken away and has been taken away.

"You cannot say a woman who has cancer and dies because she doesn't have anti-cancer drugs is a reason for a child to be given anti-cancer drugs.

"It doesn't make sense that you should say the same thing about HIV. There's no black and white in HIV at all. You can't say what's good treatment for one person is good treatment for someone else.

"I am simply following the advice of the doctors in the UK and the doctors in America, who have experience in dealing with hundreds of cases of children with HIV, and I believe that their experience is much more valuable than a single doctor in Victoria who's dealt with four children on anti-retroviral therapy."

The man has asked the British Consulate in Australia to intervene, has been trying to leave the country and return to Britain.

He said: "I will continue to try to leave the country and to return to the United Kingdom, as I have intended since I made the decision to return to the United Kingdom five weeks ago."

[Telegraph Group Limited]