|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
AIDS Testing?
| Article
# : |
19701 |
|
|
Section : |
EDITORIAL
|
| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1991 |
1,299 Words |
| Author
: |
Morton A. Kaplan
Editor and Publisher |
Melanie Scarborough's article in Current Issues on media treatment of the AIDS controversy raises all the right issues and handles them with exquisite skill. Although one properly has compassion for those subject to a life-threatening illness regardless of their own contribution to their condition, surely triage decisions with respect to money legitimately should take contributory negligence into account. It seems brutally unjust to spend so much more money on AIDS than on breast cancer when the latter illness kills more people--and women have no choice about having breasts. Except for the extreme pressure of the AIDS lobby and its cohorts in the media, such disproportions surely would not occur.
Scarborough does not discuss the media treatment of the AIDS testing issue, yet it is contemporaneously central. Most "enlightened" people seem to believe that AIDS testing should be voluntary at best. The Senate bills (late July) require both disclosure and testing. Opponents of either measure cite the great difficulty of transmitting the disease, the economic devastation that would result if doctors, for instance, announced they had AIDS, and the deception that would result if such policies are adopted.
These arguments do have merit, although I shall discuss the second objection in greater detail subsequently. However, they neglect an important principle that has received great recognition in recent years: informed consent. That unfortunate young lady, who has received so much recent publicity, would not have gone to her dentist if she had known he had AIDS. And now she is dying. Surely that is an important argument for informed consent.
That young lady is not a statistic to be swept under the table but a unique individual whose only life is about to end. Surely she was entitled to judge whether she wanted to assume even that reputed small risk. She may have had little choice whether to risk death from an airplane or automobile accident, which also are subject to small but real risks, unless she were willing to be housebound. But there are many dentists from whom to choose.
Informed consent should apply not only to the patient but to the doctor as well, who has a right to judge the degree of risk that an invasive procedure may involve. Even if one believes the Hippocratic oath binds a doctor to take such risks, surely he should at least be aware of the dangers involved in particular invasive procedures. And one wonders whether the Hippocratic oath should bind a doctor--particularly one with a family--to assist a terminal patient,
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
