AEGiS-APPJ: AIDS, Stigma, and Privacy AIDS & Public Policy JournalImportant note: Information in this article was accurate in 1990. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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AIDS, Stigma, and Privacy

AIDS & Public Policy Journal 5, no. 1 (Winter 1990): 37-41
John W. Douard

I shall argue in this paper that many of the moral problems associated with AIDS are complicated by the effects of social stigma and deviance labeling on the self-respect of people with AIDS and those who engage in activities considered to present a high risk for transmitting HIV. Labeling people deviant on the basis of a publicly observable stigma is an unjust strategy of social control. If this is true, I argue, the right to privacy is considerably more important than we are led to believe by writers who consider AIDS to be primarily a problem of either public health or the prevention of harm to individuals not yet infected.
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