AEGiS-APPJ: Ethics and AIDS: The Protection of Society Versus the Protection of Individual Rights AIDS & Public Policy JournalImportant note: Information in this article was accurate in 1991. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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Ethics and AIDS: The Protection of Society Versus the Protection of Individual Rights

AIDS & Public Policy Journal 6, no. 1 (Spring 1991): 31-36
C. Manuel et al.

AIDS has deeply disturbed our ideas about our society and ourselves and has thus given us the opportunity to rediscover the world. Throughout history, faced with successive threats to its cohesion, our social organization has always hesitated between two solutions: the elimination of risk factors and the protection of the most vulnerable members of society. The problem raised by all epidemics, whatever their nature, seems to be the antagonism between the right (or duty) of society to defend itself against the danger of destruction and the rights of infected minority groups to claim protection. A bibliographical study was undertaken to identify the ethical problems associated with AIDS, beginning with the first articles on the subject (1983) and following the literature through until July 1990. This analysis allowed us to define precisely all of the ethical problems raised since the appearance of AIDS and to study the solutions offered or implemented by various governments. We chose the references that appeared to be the most important, and these are listed in the notes section.
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