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09/02/2008: "Americans adopting HIV-positive kids from Ethiopia"

Ethiopia - Solomon Henderson inherited just three things from his birth parents, who left him at an Ethiopian orphanage when he was 1 year old: a picture of Jesus, a plastic crucifix and HIV.

As one of some 14,000 Ethiopian children born with the virus every year, Solomon's prospects for survival - much less adoption - were grim. But Erin Henderson's heart stirred when she saw him, and she decided, on the spot, to adopt him.

"They told me that they weren't sure he would live through the weekend," Henderson said by e-mail from her home in rural Wyoming, where she lives with her husband and 11 children, two of whom are HIV-positive adoptees from Ethiopia.

Figures from U.S.-based Adoption Advocates International, the agency that arranges the majority of HIV-positive adoptions in Ethiopia, show a clear and steady rise, from two such adoptions in 2005, four in 2006, 13 in 2007, and 38 either completed or pending this year.

[ It was only July this year that the Senate voted to lift the ban on immigration to the US of those who are HIV positive. Here we can see an example of an immediate effect. What possesses these adoptees to such insanity? ]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080901/ap_on_re_af/ethiopia_hiv_adoptions_1