(Ebook) Public And Professional Attitudes Toward Aids Patients by David E. Rogers, Eli Ginzberg ISBN 9780367284633, 0367284634

(Ebook) Public And Professional Attitudes Toward Aids Patients by David E. Rogers, Eli Ginzberg ISBN 9780367284633, 0367284634

IntroductionDavid E. RogersThis volume analyzes in considerable depth how fears, prejudices, socialand moral values, and individual perceptions have affected and shaped thepublic, the personal, the professional, and the economic ways in which oursociety interacts with people suffering from human immunodeficiencyvirus (HIV) infections. A central consideration is how well our society hasresponded to this dreadful epidemic that initially emerged primarilyamong two groups—gay men and intravenous (IV) drug users—whose life-styles are distasteful or condemned by many in our society.Chapters explore how well our society has handled frightening epidemicplagues in the past; what characterizes public attitudes toward people withacquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) today, after nine years ofexperience with the disease; how health professionals feel about patientswith HIV infections; and how they are coping personally both withpatients and with their own concerns about transmission of the virus.Other chapters consider how hospitals, ethicists, lawyers, and publicofficials are reacting to the medical crisis of our times.It has been painfully apparent to all of us who have worked in this areathat our first nine years of experience with AIDS have some powerfullessons to teach us. As has been true with all epidemics during recordedhuman history, our response to AIDS has been a result of the play of manyforces—rumors, science-based knowledge, social values, religious beliefs,local mores, and the political tenor of the times. But with AIDS there havebeen some notable differences. Thanks to the remarkable advances wehave made in basic biomedical science during the past several decades, weknow vastly more about the infectious agent, how to detect its presence,and what it does to the human organism than was true of any previousplague. But, paradoxically—and in part because of the rapid acquisition ofknowledge about the particular groups of people among whom AIDS…