Abstract
The initial and continual identification of risk groups is an ethical decision at all levels of discourse. Because of the normative aspect of identifying risk groups, especially within the biomedical sciences, we recommend considering reconstruction of the identification of risk groups that acknowledges community as preceding individuality before individuals are labeled as members of specific risk groups. This is an alternative to the common Western ap- proach to risk groups that assumes individuals to be atomistic entities whose individuality pre- cedes any group membership. In addition, we suggest that risk group identification be based on specific behaviors suspected as corollary with a particular health status when such identifi - cation is possible. In doing so, we offer a set of ethical tools that provides researchers a foun- dation by which to reconsider risk with regard to the community as a whole and the specific behaviors that increase risk within the community. As an example of the problems concerning normativity and risk groups, we examine the early case of AIDS and the initial labeling of ho- mosexual men as the risk group for the disease. Our examination of this case reveals that the risk group label has, at times, been an ethically precarious one with dangerous consequences.
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