This paper will discuss the state of the law in the United States regarding AIDS since 1990. The paper will discuss issues concerning mandatory testing, discrimination in the workplace and other areas, children with AIDS, health insurance, prisons, criminal law, immigration, and estate planning.
Generally, the Fourth Amendment provides some protection against intrusions such as mandatory blood tests, requiring a search warrant based upon probable cause in the criminal law enforcement setting. Outside this arena, however, courts have often found exceptions to the warrant requirement, especially in the area of employment. The Supreme Court has ruled that in noncriminal investigatory searches, the reasonableness of the search is assessed by balancing the nature and quality of the intrusion upon the individual's privacy interests against the importance of the government's interests alleged to justify the intrusion. Courts have held the drawing of blood to involve less than a significant violation of bodily integrity. In a recent case, a city required that all of its firefighters and paramedics undergo annual HIV tests in order to be qualified as "fit for duty." A federal district court in Ohio found the city's interest in preventing the transmission of HIV to be compelling and upheld the policy. The court also concluded that the firefighters and paramedics had little expectation of privacy, in view of the high degree of regulation of their occupations. In the case of health care workers, courts have even been willing to go farther than just allowing mandatory testing. In one case, a court held that there was a compelling need for disclosing to colleagues and patients the fact that a physician was infected with HIV. It should be noted that in situations where employers dismiss employees because test results indicate that they are infected with HIV, the dismissed employees may have recourse against the employers under the ...