The social costs of the AIDS epidemic

Kanouse et al. (1991) report that 86 percent of their respondents personally knew someone, living or dead, who had AIDS, and among those who knew at least one such person, the median number was seven. This was from a sample of gay and bisexual men and showed that the epidemic has reached deeply into their lives. The researchers state that the experience of loss on such a scale raises the possibility of mental health consequences such as posttraumatic stress and depression for large numbers of men affected by the epidemic (p. xii).

ScheperHughes and Locke (1991) note that societal and cultural responses to dreaded diseases such as cancer and AIDS create a second illness, or "double," involving layers of stigma, rejection, fear, and exclusion. While the symptoms of the illness are biological entities, they are also coded metaphors that speak to the contradictory aspects of social life, expressing sentiments, feelings, and ideas that must otherwise be kept hidden. The authors feel that this harks back to the 1972 model of T. Parsons of sickness as deviance and to the

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lue systems, and private lives. He also finds that social issues have been changed and distorted because of AIDS. The disease has raised questions of discrimination in housing, employment, insurance, and medical services. Gray notes that fear of the disease may lead to measures which threaten civil rights and civil liberties, and while he agrees that some such measures may prove necessary, he also cautions that no such actions should be taken unless a clear public health benefit would result (pp. 227-229). A look at the efforts made so far shows how difficult this will be: "Education is the only weapon in the current arsenal to fight the disease. . . . While there seems to be universal agreement that education is the best course to pursue, the disagreement concerns what should be told" (Gray: p. 244). AIDS is clearly a problem for the medical community in terms of treating the disease, but it is also a further social problem for the medical establishment in society. Ellens (1987) shows that AIDS is becoming an overwhelming problem to the medical system and the social psychology of American society. AIDS provokes fear and denial in the professional medical as well as the general population. There is a danger that such fear and
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