DENVER (AP) — A national gay-rights group is helping a Denver man with HIV fight Kaiser Permanente’s refusal to cover his kidney transplant.

John Carl, 53, has been turned down despite being accepted by the United Network for Organ Sharing’s national list, according to Lambda Legal, a New York-based advocacy group that also works with people with HIV and AIDS.

Hayley Gorenberg, Lambda’s AIDS Project director, said that this is the first time her group has represented someone denied a transplant because of having HIV.

Officials for Kaiser, a giant not-for-profit health maintenance organization, said a transplant on someone with HIV or AIDS is considered too risky because drugs used to suppress rejection of a new organ can further jeopardize their already embattled immune systems.

Studies, however, have increasingly shown that the success rate for transplants is as good for HIV patients in relatively good health as it is for other patients, Gorenberg said. Recent studies by the University of Pittsburgh and the University of California in San Francisco found that HIV patients’ survival were as good as uninfected people’s.

But insurance companies and HMOs continue to deny coverage, Gorenberg said.

“It’s a scenario we’ve been looking at the last year or so,” Gorenberg said. “We’ve been hearing more and more about the frequency of the problem.”

For Carl, it comes down to quality of life. He tested positive for HIV in 1988, but with the help of advances in drugs, was in fairly good health until kidney failure in 2001 forced him to undergo dialysis three times a week.

Even now, Carl said he feels good and is active — except on days he has to have dialysis. He is willing to risk what Kaiser considers an experimental operation.

“But at least I didn’t not try,” Carl added.

It is believed that HIV caused Carl’s kidney problems.

Steve Krizman, Kaiser spokesman in Denver, confirmed the HMO denied coverage of a transplant for Carl.

“What our doctors are concerned about with organ transplants is that after the operation, some pretty powerful immunosuppressant drugs are given,” Krizman said. “They’re worried they might be harmful for someone who already has a compromised immune system.”

He acknowledged that some studies have produced encouraging results, but stressed that many doctors remain leery of transplants for HIV and AIDS patients. Krizman said Carl might be able to participate in clinical trials, which will give doctors more information.