Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T11:57:51.707Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

AIDS-Related Legislation in the Context of the Third AIDS Pandemic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 April 2021

Extract

The first AIDS-related legislation was enacted in 1983. By this time, policy-makers as well as legislators in several countries had set in motion the process of formulating legislative measures to deal with a new and critical problem about which very little was known. This process gathered momentum over the years, partly as a response to the recognition that the problem of discrimination against AIDS patients and persons with HIV infection, which first began with homosexuals and persons of Haitian and African origin, will assume more critical dimensions with devastating social, economic, political and cultural implications and reactions. It is these implications and reactions which have come to be described as the “Third AIDS Pandemic:”

The third epidemic closely follows the first two, of HIV infection and AIDS. It is the epidemic of economic, social, political and cultural reaction. In the words of Javier Perez de Cuellar,… “AIDS raises crucial social, humanitarian, and legal issues threatening to undermine the fabric of tolerance and understanding upon which our societies function.”

Type
Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1990 American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Regulations No. 6 or 8 March 1983 of the National Board of Health and Welfare concerning notification of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). Other countries which adopted legislative or quasi-legislative measures in the same year are Canada (Ontario); Denmark; Federal Republic of Germany; France; Greece; Israel; Italy; New Zealand; and the United States. Selected legislative texts on AIDS have been reproduced in World Health Organization, Legislative Responses to AIDS (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1989). For a comparative survey of AIDS-related legislation, see Jayasuriya, D.C., AIDS: Public Health and Legal Dimensions (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1988). As for AIDS-related laws in national jurisdictions, most researchers have focused on the situation in the United States. See, for instance, Gostin, L. and Ziegler, A., “A Review of AIDS-related Legislative and Regulatory Policy in the United States,” Law, Medicine and Health Care, 15(1–2) (1987): 516.Google Scholar
Mann, J., Statement at an Informal Briefing on AIDS to the 42nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly, Oct. 20, 1987 (Unpublished document available from the Global Programme on AIDS, WHO, Geneva).Google Scholar
“European Community adopts further policy statement on AIDS,” International Digest of Health Legislation, 39(4) (1988): 937938.Google Scholar
For example, The Health Act Amendment Act 1984 (No. 2) of Queensland, Australia; Law No. 7 of 7 April 1986 of Iceland; and, Ordinance No. 742 of 5 September 1985 of Sweden.Google Scholar
For example, Fourth Regulations of 22 December 1987 of the German Democratic Republic. For detailed discussions of the role of communicable disease statutes, see Gostin, L., “The future of communicable disease control: Toward a new concept in public health law,” Milbank Quarterly, 64(supp. 1) (1986): 7996, and Merritt, D.J., “Communicable Disease and Constitutional Law: Controlling AIDS,” New York Law Review, 61(1986): 301–360.Google Scholar
For example, Federal Law of 16 May 1986 (Serial No. 293) of Austria.Google Scholar
For example, Regulation 490/85 of 3 October 1985 of Ontario, Canada.Google Scholar
Some legal texts contain detailed procedures to protect confidentiality, eg. 1985 Wisconsin Act 73.Google Scholar
King, M.B., “AIDS on the Death Certificate: The final stigma,” British Medical Journal 298 (1989): 735.Google Scholar
The establishment of voluntary testing sites was recommended by the Council of Europe in 1987 (Recommendation R 987) 25).Google Scholar
See further, Gostin, L., “AIDS screening, confidentiality, and the duty to warn,” American Journal of Public Health 77(1987): 361365.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
See further, Sabatier, R., Blaming Others: Prejudice, Race and Worldwide Aids (London: The Panos Institute, 1988).Google Scholar
Rhame, F. S. and Maki, D. G., “The Case for Wider Use of Testing for HIV Infection,” New England Journal of Medicine 320(19) (1989): 1250.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
The enactment of the regulations turned out to be one of the rare occasions when Soviet officials and the press gave wide publicity to a legislative text in the health field.Google Scholar
Notice No. IE/IA/IC-5280-8.2/7/87 of 19 May 1987 of the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior.Google Scholar
Immigration Regulation Instructions No. 14 of 17 February 1988 and Immigration Regulation Instructions No. 21 of 13 April 1988 issued by Commission on Immigration and Deportation, Department of Justice of the Philippines. The issue of HIV screening of refugees is of particular concern to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. In May 1988 the Deputy High Commissioner issued a memorandum setting out the UNHCR policy on the screening of refugees.Google Scholar
Decree of 25 August 1987 of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet on measures for the prevention of infection by the AIDS virus.Google Scholar
Op.cit. note 15.Google Scholar
The report of the WHO Meeting on Criteria for HIV Screening Programmes (WHO/SPA/GLO/87.2) contains a set of 13 questions to be considered when identifying the population to be screened.Google Scholar
See further, Dickens, B.M., “Legal Rights and Duties in the AIDS Epidemic,” Science, 239 (1988); 580586; Kirby, M.D., “AIDS Legislation — turning up the heat?,” Australian Law Journal, 60(1986): 324–332; and Dornette, W.H.L. (ed.) AIDS and the Law, (New York, John Wiley &Sons, 1987).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sunday Observer, 19 March 1989.Google Scholar
Cleary, P. D. et al.. “Compulsory Premarital Screening for the Human Immunodeficiency Syndrome,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 258(13)(1987): 17571762.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
See further, Einhorn, A., “Conference on Hospitals, Healthcare Professionals and AIDS (Boston, 1–2 December 1988), International Digest of Health Legislation, 40(2)(2989): 479483.Google Scholar
Decree No. 18454-S-J of September 1988.Google Scholar
The AIDS Prevention Law of 23 December 1988.Google Scholar
Decree No. 89-93 of 8 February 1989 establishing a National Council on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.Google Scholar
Order No. 88-06/MSPP of 11 November 1988.Google Scholar
Several Publications issued by the Intergovernmental Health Policy Project of the George Washington University contain abstracts of the relevant legislation.Google Scholar
Law No. 4077 of 31 December 1988 amending the Law on the prevention of acquired immune deficiency syndrome.Google Scholar
Summerfield, D., “HIV Infection—Discrimination and Criminalisation,” Lancet, ii:(April 29, 1989): 956.Google Scholar