AIDS Law Today


Book Description

Essays by policymakers, practicing attorneys, and physicians examine the many legal issues raised by the AIDS epidemic and the ways society, through its laws, can and should respond




Punishing Disease


Book Description

From the very beginning of the epidemic, AIDS was linked to punishment. Calls to punish people living with HIV—mostly stigmatized minorities—began before doctors had even settled on a name for the disease. Punitive attitudes toward AIDS prompted lawmakers around the country to introduce legislation aimed at criminalizing the behaviors of people living with HIV. Punishing Disease explains how this happened—and its consequences. With the door to criminalizing sickness now open, what other ailments will follow? As lawmakers move to tack on additional diseases such as hepatitis and meningitis to existing law, the question is more than academic.




The Social Impact of AIDS in the United States


Book Description

Europe's "Black Death" contributed to the rise of nation states, mercantile economies, and even the Reformation. Will the AIDS epidemic have similar dramatic effects on the social and political landscape of the twenty-first century? This readable volume looks at the impact of AIDS since its emergence and suggests its effects in the next decade, when a million or more Americans will likely die of the disease. The Social Impact of AIDS in the United States addresses some of the most sensitive and controversial issues in the public debate over AIDS. This landmark book explores how AIDS has affected fundamental policies and practices in our major institutions, examining: How America's major religious organizations have dealt with sometimes conflicting values: the imperative of care for the sick versus traditional views of homosexuality and drug use. Hotly debated public health measures, such as HIV antibody testing and screening, tracing of sexual contacts, and quarantine. The potential risk of HIV infection to and from health care workers. How AIDS activists have brought about major change in the way new drugs are brought to the marketplace. The impact of AIDS on community-based organizations, from volunteers caring for individuals to the highly political ACT-UP organization. Coping with HIV infection in prisons. Two case studies shed light on HIV and the family relationship. One reports on some efforts to gain legal recognition for nonmarital relationships, and the other examines foster care programs for newborns with the HIV virus. A case study of New York City details how selected institutions interact to give what may be a picture of AIDS in the future. This clear and comprehensive presentation will be of interest to anyone concerned about AIDS and its impact on the country: health professionals, sociologists, psychologists, advocates for at-risk populations, and interested individuals.




Speaking Truth to Power


Book Description

"Speaking truth to power is about the resurgence of activism in post-apartheid South Africa. A small NGO in Johannesburg, the AIDS Law Project (ALP), along with its allies in the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), used legal strategies and collective action for more than a decade to fight for the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS. Today South Africa has the laws that protect the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS and the largest treatment programme in the world. This would not have happened without dedicated activism and a commitment to social justice. Speaking truth to power tells how people used our Constitution and the law in this struggle. The leadership of the ALP was clear as to how they wanted their history to be told. They saw the ALP story as the story of their clients and their cases, which form the milestones in this struggle. So this is a story about ordinary people who in their own way did some extraordinary things at an exceptionally difficult time. They stood up against prejudice and disinformation because they felt strongly about their rights. For some it was discrimination against themselves; for others is was discrimination against their fellow citizens who were vulnerable because they were living with a disease that had no cure and they were often seriously ill, even dying. To add insult to injury, the country's president and, for some time, the government denied the scale of the epidemic. People's rights were being violated, but the law gave them a way to reassert them, generating the first resurgence of civil society in post-apartheid South Africa. This book is about the power of people and their courage to speak the truth."--Back cover.




Legal Aspects of HIV/AIDS


Book Description

This is an invaluable resource for lawyers, policy makers, and other practitioners with an interest in countries' responses to HIV/AIDS. Legal Aspects of HIV/AIDS: A Guide for Policy and Law Reform covers 65 wide-ranging topics in a concise, accessible format, explaining how laws and regulations can either underpin or undermine public health programs and responsible personal behavior. For each topic, the Guide summarizes the key legal or policy issues, provides relevant "practice examples" (citing actual laws and regulations), and offers a selective list of references that may be consulted for more information. Laws relating to many areas of our lives - from intimate physical conduct to international travel - can contribute to stigma, discrimination, and exclusion or, contrariwise, can help remedy these inequities. In order to create a supportive legal framework for responding to HIV/AIDS, it is important that governments effectively address gaps and other problematic aspects in their legislation and regulatory systems. This book, written by a team of leading legal experts, helps them do so.




Public Health Law Research


Book Description

Public Health Law Research: Theory and Methods definitively explores the mechanisms, theories and models central to public health law research – a growing field dedicated to measuring and studying law as a central means for advancing public health. Editors Alexander C. Wagenaar and Scott Burris outline integrated theory drawn from numerous disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences; specific mechanisms of legal effect and guidelines for collecting and coding empirical datasets of statutory and case law; optimal research designs for randomized trials and natural experiments for public health law evaluation; and methods for qualitative and cost-benefit studies of law.. They also discuss the challenge of effectively translating the results of scientific evaluations into public health laws and highlight the impact of this growing field. “How exactly the law can best be used as a tool for protecting and enhancing the public’s health has long been the subject of solely opinion and anecdote. Enter Public Health Law Research, a discipline designed to bring the bright light of science to the relationships between law and health. This book is a giant step forward in illuminating that subject.” -- Stephen Teret, JD, MPH, Professor, Director, Center for Law and the Public's Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health “Wagenaar and Burris bring a dose of much needed rigor to the empirical study of which public health law interventions really matter, and which don’t.” -- Bernard S. Black, JD, Chabraja Professor, Northwestern University Law School and Kellogg School of Management Companion Web site: www.josseybass.com/go/wagenaar




HIV, Aids, and the Law


Book Description

Although morbidity among HIV/AIDS victims has decreased, the rate of new infections has remained steady for several years, substantially increasing the likelihood that this epidemic will continue and expand as a concern for social workers and their clientele, both of whom will need to be kept informed of the complex laws governing the milieu and the consequences of the disease. This is certainly the case with its spread throughout Asia and Africa. In this new work, the author draws upon statutes and court decisions from across the United States to provide a comprehensive and current picture of the many facets of HIV/AIDS law, including health policy; confidentiality; privacy; bioethics; the workplace; and criminal law and corrections. The volume of legal, medical, social science, and popular literature pertaining to HIV/AIDS that has been published over the past two decades is staggering. Hence, any addition to this collection needs some justification. What Dickson offers is different from what has preceded. Rather than one more contribution to the extensive legal or social science literature, this book attempts to integrate the perspectives from two fields: law and social work. The hope is that this will give social workers, practitioners, and teachers a better understanding of one of the major issues that may face them in their work with patients and clients every day. To date, although there is extensive HIV and AIDS-related literature in social work and the social sciences, it is primarily focused on social work practice issues. Where law has been introduced in these works, it often is narrow in focus and, given the rapid changes in the field, no longer up to date. This book does not purport to discuss all legal issues in all jurisdictions relating to HIV/AIDS, but rather to choose selectively those that have particular relevance for social work and social policy. The author has placed reliance on those published medical works cited with approval in the legal and social science literature. This is a seminal work on the relationship of law, medicine, and ethics. Donald T. Dickson is professor in the School of Social Work at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, in New Brunswick.




HIV and the Blood Supply


Book Description

During the early years of the AIDS epidemic, thousands of Americans became infected with HIV through the nation's blood supply. Because little reliable information existed at the time AIDS first began showing up in hemophiliacs and in others who had received transfusions, experts disagreed about whether blood and blood products could transmit the disease. During this period of great uncertainty, decision-making regarding the blood supply became increasingly difficult and fraught with risk. This volume provides a balanced inquiry into the blood safety controversy, which involves private sexual practices, personal tragedy for the victims of HIV/AIDS, and public confidence in America's blood services system. The book focuses on critical decisions as information about the danger to the blood supply emerged. The committee draws conclusions about what was doneâ€"and recommends what should be done to produce better outcomes in the face of future threats to blood safety. The committee frames its analysis around four critical area: Product treatmentâ€"Could effective methods for inactivating HIV in blood have been introduced sooner? Donor screening and referralâ€"including a review of screening to exlude high-risk individuals. Regulations and recall of contaminated bloodâ€"analyzing decisions by federal agencies and the private sector. Risk communicationâ€"examining whether infections could have been averted by better communication of the risks.




After the Wrath of God


Book Description

On a cold February morning in 1987, amidst freezing rain and driving winds, a group of protesters stood outside of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Amherst, Massachusetts. The target of their protest was the minister inside, who was handing out condoms to his congregation while delivering a sermon about AIDS, dramatizing the need for the church to confront the seemingly ever-expanding crisis. The minister's words and actions were met with a standing ovation from the overflowing audience, but he could not linger to enjoy their applause. Having received threats in advance of the service, he dashed out of the sanctuary immediately upon finishing his sermon. Such was the climate for religious AIDS activism in the 1980s. In After the Wrath of God, Anthony Petro vividly narrates the religious history of AIDS in America. Delving into the culture wars over sex, morality, and the future of the American nation, he demonstrates how religious leaders and AIDS activists have shaped debates over sexual morality and public health from the 1980s to the present day. While most attention to religion and AIDS foregrounds the role of the Religious Right, Petro takes a much broader view, encompassing the range of mainline Protestant, evangelical, and Catholic groups--alongside AIDS activist organizations--that shaped public discussions of AIDS prevention and care in the U.S. Petro analyzes how the AIDS crisis prompted American Christians across denominations and political persuasions to speak publicly about sexuality--especially homosexuality--and to foster a moral discourse on sex that spoke not only to personal concerns but to anxieties about the health of the nation. He reveals how the epidemic increased efforts to advance a moral agenda regarding the health benefits of abstinence and monogamy, a legacy glimpsed as much in the traction gained by abstinence education campaigns as in the more recent cultural purchase of gay marriage. The first book to detail the history of religion and the AIDS epidemic in the U.S., After the Wrath of God is essential reading for anyone concerned with the intersection of religion and public health.