Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Aids Epidemic: A Prism Distorting Social And Legal Principles, Alec Gray

New England Journal of Public Policy

The AIDS epidemic is affecting American society in far-reaching and unexpected ways. It touches our institutions, our value systems, and our private lives. Social issues seem to change and become distorted by the epidemic 's prismlike effect. This article examines some of the major public health issues raised by the epidemic, ranging from testing to contact tracing and quarantine. It argues that while the civil rights of individuals may have to be sacrificed to stem the spread of the disease, those rights should not be abandoned unless a clear benefit to the public health would result.

Issues of discrimination in …

Minorities And Hiv Infection, Veneita Porter

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article discusses a preliminary comparison of responses to AIDS in ethnic communities and their basis in previously established support systems. The importance of public policy and its connection to racism and cultural insensitivities are discussed as they relate to communities of color at risk. Particular attention is paid to problems of communication and to the ethics involving confidentiality.

Accounts Of An Illness: Extracts, Ron Schreiber

New England Journal of Public Policy

The following pieces, with an introduction by the author, are from a work in progress entitled John, to be published in the fall of 1988 by Hanging Loose Press and Calamus Books, New York City. In this work, Ron Schreiber, John's lover of nine years, writes a chronicle of a terminal illness from diagnosis to death.

Ron Schreiber's poems first appeared in Radical America's "Facing AIDS," a special issue devoted to AIDS.

Call To Action: A Community Responds, Larry Kessler, Ann M. Silvia, David Aronstein, Cynthia Patton

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article will examine the early formation of the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts, and what it has become. It will examine particular philosophical and organizational conflicts, some unique to AIDS organizing, that have influenced the direction the group has taken. It will try to tease out some of the factors that have made the organization successful in delivering services, providing education, and affecting city and state policy. It will also examine some of the unresolved conflicts that threaten the organization.

Politics And Aids: Conversations And Comments, Steven Stark

New England Journal of Public Policy

As AIDS has emerged as a medical and social concern, it has become a political issue as well. In a series of interviews, we asked some leading authorities for their opinions on how AIDS is emerging as a political issue, particularly during the campaign of 1988. In all cases, the comments that follow represent an edited version of their remarks. Those participating were Ronald Bayer, director of the Project on AIDS and the Ethics of Public Health at the Hastings Center; William Schneider, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute; Jonathan Handel, a gay activist and a member of the …

The Big One: Literature Discovers Aids, Shaun O'Connell

New England Journal of Public Policy

Among the works discussed in this essay: An Intimate Desire to Survive, by Bill Becker; Epitaphs for the Plague Dead, by Robert Boucheron; A Cry in the Desert, by Jed A. Bryan; The World Can Break Your Heart, by Daniel Curzon; Safe Sex, by Harvey Fierstein; "The Castro," in Cities on a Hill: A Journey Through Contemporary American Culture, by Frances FitzGerald; As Is, by William M. Hoffman; Plague: A Novel About Healing, by Toby Johnson; The Normal Heart, by Larry Kramer; To All the Girls I've Loved Before: An AIDS …

Covering The Plague Years: Four Approaches To The Aids Beat, James Kinsella

New England Journal of Public Policy

AIDS reporting has changed dramatically since 1981. But it was not until mid-1985, when Rock Hudson was diagnosed with the disease, that media outlets began playing the epidemic as a story of major proportions.

Because almost no major media institution embraced the AIDS story as an important issue, coverage of the epidemic was often the result of a reporter's initiative. Consequently, the connection the individual journalist had with the epidemic became a much stronger influence on what appeared in the news and on what Americans knew about the crisis than in any other recent major health story. This article examines …

Aids And A-Bomb Disease: Facing A Special Death, Chris Glaser

New England Journal of Public Policy

In 1979 it was called "gay cancer," and it took the life of an acquaintance. Then "gay-related immune deficiency," or GRID, claimed neighbors, friends of friends, fellow activists. I began grief and death counseling with a segment of the population ordinarily concerned with life's ambitions and enjoyments: men in their twenties and thirties. Hospital visits and memorial services became more frequent.

By 1983, when it had come to be called AIDS, my own friends began to be affected. One was a man I dated in seminary, and I was devastated to learn of his illness only upon receiving a notice …

The Clinical Spectrum Of Hiv Infections: Implications For Public Policy, Kenneth H. Mayer

New England Journal of Public Policy

The term acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a definition developed by the Centers for Disease Control to explain the epidemic of immunosuppression first seen in the United States among gay and bisexual men and intravenous drug users in the early 1980s. It is now known that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is the necessary agent for the compromise of the immune system which results in AIDS; however, there is a wide range of manifestations associated with HIV infection. Individuals with AIDS tend to have severe opportunistic infections or malignancies, and the vast majority ofindividuals die within two years after the …