GOP Lawmaker Who Suggested Quarantining People With HIV Blames Media, Says She Was Just Being ‘Provocative’

Price Falsely Claims She ‘Made a Provocative and Rhetorical Comment as Part of a Free-Flowing Conversation’

Republican Georgia state lawmaker Betty Price is standing by her remarks, chastising critics by claiming they were taken out of context, and insisting she was just trying to be “provocative.”

Rep. Price, a medical doctor who also happens to be the wife of former Trump Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, issued a statement after a report by Project Q Atlanta on Friday spread quickly to the mainstream media. 

“I made a provocative and rhetorical comment as part of a free-flowing conversation which has been taken completely out of context,” Price said, which is not accurate. It was not “a free-flowing conversation” but rather a Q&A during which she made clear she was attempting to see how far the state could legally go since it may be paying for the medical care and services of some people living with HIV.

“I do not support a quarantine in this public health challenge and dilemma of undertreated HIV patients,” Price’s statement continues, as reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I do, however, wish to light a fire under all of us with responsibility in the public health arena – a fire that will result in resolve and commitment to ensure that all of our fellow citizens with HIV will receive, and adhere to, a treatment regimen that will enhance their quality of life and protect the health of the public.”

Early last week Price asked an HIV expert if she “wouldn’t mind commenting on the surveillance of partners, tracking of contacts, that sort of thing. What are we legally able to do?”

(Price’s remarks can be heard in the two-hour video above, starting at the 1:02:10 mark.) 

And suggesting that accepting some forms of government assistance should allow the government to curtail someone’s civil rights, Price added, “I don’t want to say the quarantine word but I guess I just said it. Is there an ability, since I would guess that public dollars are expended heavily in prophylaxis and treatment of this condition, so we have a public interest in curtailing the spread. What would you advise or are there any methods legally that we could do that would curtail the spread?”

Stunningly, Price also lamented that “it’s almost frightening the number of people who are living [with HIV] that are potentially carriers, well not carriers, with the potential to spread, whereas in the past they died more readily and at that point they are not posing a risk. So we’ve got a huge population posing a risk if they are not in treatment.”

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