AIDS Warnings and Health Care Providers

Because of the nature of the HIV virus and the AIDS disease, and because of the Tarasoff decision, a health care provider has an affirmative duty to warn certain third parties that a person is HIV positive in order to protect the public health. Shifting the burden of such notification to public health authorities would be an efficient method of warning third parties, but notifying law enforcement authorities may reduce the number of HIV-positive people seeking treatment, thereby having a detrimental impact on the containment of the epidemic.

While citizens of the United States have always valued privacy rights, there is a point where the national safety and welfare outweigh, the individuals privacy. Certain measures have been established during times of emergency which intrude upon the individuals rights, and it appears that the AIDS situation is one of those times of emergency.

There is presently no cure for AIDS. The disease has already claimed more than 33,000 lives in the United States since its discovery in this country in 1981. An additional 1.5 to 2 million Americans are believed to be infected with HIV and statistics from the Public Health Service indicate that by 1991 the number of people with AIDS will rise above 270,000. The average AIDS patient lives only eighteen months after diagnosis; more t

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e and the dangers of exposure. However, no defendant physician in the cases regarding contagious disease used the defense that he had no duty to warn; therefore, no court has yet determined whether an affirmative duty existed.8 It is unlikely that a court would find that the preservation of patient confidentiality would outweigh the interest in preventing serious harm to a third party, or to the public health. In the only reported case on this issue, Doe v. Prime Health/Kansas City Inc., the District Court enjoined the defendant health care provider from advising the ex-wife of a patient that the patient had HIV even though the ex-wife was also a patient of defendant health care provider. The court reasoned that the strong public policy favoring patient-physician confidentiality required the court to assess the risk of transmission before finding an exception to the policy. The Court found that the risk was low because the husband had stated that he did not intend to have sexual relations with his former wife, and the former wife had tested negative for HIV twice since her last sexual encounter with the plaintiff.9 The main argument against disclosure is the substantial stigma that would attach to the HIV-positive person i
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Prime Health, Liberties Union, Duty Confidentiality, Supremacy Clause, Supreme Court, District Court, Medical Ethics, Cal Rptr, Univ California, AIDS California, duty warn, health care, health care provider, care provider, third parties, public health, third party, medical information, food drug, affirmative duty, law enforcement authorities, shifting burden, california 17 cal, regents univ california, confidential medical information,
Approximate Word count = 2292
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

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