AEGiS-APPJ: AIDS: A Storm Threatening Medical Confidentiality

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1991. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

AIDS: A Storm Threatening Medical Confidentiality

AIDS & Public Policy Journal 6, no. 1 (Spring 1991): 28-30
M.P. Larher et al.

The concept of medical confidentiality is intertwined with the notion that the physician-patient relationship is a private one. Government intervention in the field of health has, first, modified this relationship by obliging physicians to serve the public health (by mandating the reporting of patients' contagious diseases) and, second, created a field of health characterized by medicosocial preoccupations. Health care, once characterized as individualistic and private, has evolved into a social and national concept with the development of the public health movement. The idea that health is a social commodity is a recent one. By making health a concern for the community, national and international legal texts have affirmed the right of the individual to protect his or her own health. Medical confidentiality has been adapted to apply to AIDS. However, the currently accepted principles of confidentiality may have to be revised if or when a vaccine or cure is discovered. For example, how will present legal requirements be applied, when a cure exists, in the case of a patient who refuses that treatment? What will happen to the principles of medical confidentiality in this setting? Finally, the question remains as to whether the medical profession will be prepared to force treatment on patients for the good of the community.
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