Risky Business: Setting Public Health Policy for HIV-Infected Health Care Professionals
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1992
ISSN
0887-378X
Publisher
Milbank Memorial Fund
Language
en-US
Abstract
An analysis of the restrictive proposals provoked by the case of Kimberly Bergalis and four other patients apparently infected with HIV during the course of dental treatment reveals that they resulted from an inability to evaluate appropriately the infinitesimal risk of HIV transmission from practitioner to patient. The proposals also resulted from an effort to create risk prevention policy without appreciating the distinction between regulating things or procedures, which have no human rights, and regulating people, who have rights that should not be infringed without serious justification. This analysis demonstrates that the proposed restrictive policies are not justified because they do nothing to prevent the spread of HIV, and they cause unnecessary and substantial harm to health care practitioners.
Recommended Citation
Leonard H. Glantz, Wendy K. Mariner & George J. Annas,
Risky Business: Setting Public Health Policy for HIV-Infected Health Care Professionals
,
in
70
The Milbank Quarterly
43
(1992).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/1887
