AIDS & Ethics

Should a physician with AIDS be required to inform his or her patients? Does a physician have an obligation to warn the partner who wants this fact kept secret? Should all newborns and pregnant women be screened for HIV? Should insurance companies be required to insure patients who test positive for the disease? Professionals and society at large are confronted by a wide range of complex ethical issues produced by the AIDS health crisis.

AIDS and Ethics is the first major collection of essays on the complex ethical issues created by the AIDS crisis. The nation's leading bioethics experts from the fields of law, medicine, philosophy, political science, religion, and social work present original and accessible essays. They address current controversial issues related to the tension between civil rights and public health, mandatory HIV testing, human subjects research, health care insurance, AIDS education, militant AIDS activism, the physician-patient relationship, issues of privacy, and legal issues. This important book will provide philosophical and practical guidelines to health care and human service professionals, policy makers, scholars, and others affected by the AIDS crisis.