AIDS and patient confidentiality. More dilemmas for physicians--and lawyers.
If patients who have AIDS or ARC, or who are seropositive for HIV antibody, refuse to engage in "safe sex" to protect their sexual partners, may physicians warn those partners? Must they warn them? Does the law apply equally to symptomatic and asymptomatic patients? The law is not only confusing but in a state of flux. Both physicians and lawyers are cautioned against answering these questions categorically on general principles derived from the famous (or infamous) Tarasoff case. If the questions can be answered at all, they must be preceded by minute examination of the laws of each jurisdiction. The difficulty lies in knowing whether and how the law should be changed. A physician may be required to warn certain contacts of certain patients, and forbidden to warn other contact equally at risk from other patients equally infectious. Issues of morality and politics are posed: Is AIDS to be treated as a sickness or a sin? Of the measures physicians recommend to protect public health, which will be politically acceptable to various pressure groups? And if the laws are enacted, will they survive widespread resistance and evasion?
D000163:Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome / Q000635:transmission*; D003219:Confidentiality / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D006801:Humans; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D012941:Social Responsibility; D014342:Truth Disclosure; D014481:United States