AIDS: Principles, Practices, and Politics

Abstract

One might wonder when a saturation point with the literature and public debate on policy concerning the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) will be reached. For example, now that we have seen premarital human immunodeficiency virus antibody testing identify four positives out of 12 000 persons tested in Illinois, at costs that could have purchased 160 million condoms, paid for zidovudine for one year for all persons with AIDS in Illinois, or quadrupled the state expenditure for AIDS education ( St Louis Post-Dispatch , April 21, 1988, pp 1, 9), what more can this policy's advocates say? Or how many more times will the courts be called on to uphold the public health experts' authority on the issue of children with AIDS being allowed in school, before communities and/or the local school boards accept both the basis and the spirit of this policy? To date, every judgment has supported the child's right to