Law Commons^™

Risky Business: Setting Public Health Policy For Hiv-Infected Health Care Professionals, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

In JULY 1991, THE UNITED STATES SENATE VOTED 81 to 18 to impose a $10,000 fine and a ten-year jail sentence on any HTV-infected physicians who treated patients without disclosing their HIV status. Senator Jesse Helms, the sponsor of the measure, explained his rationale: “Let the punishment fit the crime. . . . I believe in horsewhipping. I feel that strongly about it” (Tolchin 1991). Later, Senator Helms wrote that HIV-infected physicians who practice medicine “should be treated no better than the criminal who guns down a helpless victim on the street” (Helms 1991). In his article he explained that …