AIDS Pandemic: Complacency, Injustice, and Unfulfilled Expectations by Lawrence O. Gostin, Michael Kirby (Foreword by)

From the Publisher

In this collection of essays, Lawrence O. Gostin, an internationally recognized scholar of AIDS law and policy, confronts the most pressing and controversial issues surrounding AIDS in America and around the world. He shows how HIV/AIDS affects the entire population--infected and uninfected--by influencing our social norms, our economy, and our country's role as a world leader.

Now in the third decade of this pandemic, the nation and the world still fail to respond to the needs of persons living with HIV/AIDS and continue to tolerate injustice in their treatment, Gostin argues. AIDS, both in the United States and globally, deeply affects poor and marginalized populations, and many U.S. policies are based on conservative moral values rather than public health and social justice concerns.

Gostin tackles the hard social, legal, political, and ethical issues of the HIV/AIDS pandemic: privacy and discrimination, travel and immigration, clinical trials and drug pricing, exclusion of HIV-infected health care workers, testing and treatment of pregnant women and infants, and needle-exchange programs. This book provides an inside account of AIDS policy debates together with incisive commentary. It is indispensable reading for advocates, scholars, health professionals, lawyers, and the concerned public.

Doody Review Services

Reviewer:Mark D. Goodman, MD (Creighton University Medical Center)
Description:This is a collection of well written essays exploring the legal, social, and political ramifications of HIV/AIDS.
Purpose:The purpose is to explore the role of law and policy for those living with HIV/AIDS, and for the communities dealing with this epidemic. These worthy objectives are met. In his preface, Professor Gostin attempts to show how HIV/AIDS affects the entire population, "by influencing our social norms, our economy and our country's role as a world leader."
Audience:The book is written for "advocates, lawyers, health professionals, scholars and the concerned public," as stated in the opening. The author is a noted AIDS activist, governmental advisor scholar, and scientist, and brings tremendous credibility to the book.
Features:The book is divided into five major sections dealing with AIDS in the courtroom; rights and dignity; policy, politics and ethics; special populations; and AIDS in the world. Numerous illustrations, as well as tables and maps, are scattered throughout the chapters. The book is especially to be celebrated for its regard for the rights of patients as individuals. It provides an interesting and refreshing alternative to many books on this subject, which tend to favor public health measures over private rights. A thorough review of the current state of the law follows, including such subjects as blood donors/banking, partner notification, HIV-specific criminal statutes, and perinatal testing to name a few. The subject is enormous, but Professor Gostin does an excellent job of corralling theinformation and presenting it in an instructive and comprehensive way.
Assessment:This book is of the highest quality, and of a much more humanistic tone than others in the field.

Rating

3 Stars from Doody

Product Details

• Table of Contents

Table of Contents