HIV and AIDS Testing, Screening, and Confidentiality

Testing and screening for HIV and AIDS give rise to ethical, legal, and social issues of the most controversial and delicate kind. In this book, an international team of eighteen doctors, philosophers, and lawyers present a fresh and thorough discussion of these issues; they aim to show the way to practical advances but also to provide an accessible guide to the debates for readers new to them. They pay particular attention to the sensitive nature of the information yielded by a test for the HIV antibody. Together the essays illuminate not only public policy and medical practice in connection with HIV and AIDS, but also broader issues about professional ethics and individual rights in other medical and social contexts.

Rebecca Bennett is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Social Ethics and Policy, University of Manchester; Charles A. Erin is Head of the Centre, Lecturer in Applied Philosophy, and a Fellow of the University's Institute of Medicine, Law, and Bioethics.