From TB to AIDS: Value Conflicts in Reporting Disease

Abstract

Controversies about reporting communicable diseases in both the past\nand present are viewed as political conflicts rather than as scientific or\ntechnological issues. Debates about reporting have been ideological and have\nreflected different attitudes about physicians' authority and social values. \nFox describes the work of Hermann Biggs, public health chief in New York City\nduring the mid 1890s, in implementing a compulsory reporting system that\nstressed confidentiality, as well as the growth of tensions between public and\nprivate medicine from 1920 to 1960. Although there has been increased\nacceptance of recordkeeping and regulation in the past 20 years, the epidemic\nof acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) has reignited the controversy\nover the use of case reports and has fueled fears in the homosexual population\nconcerning discrimination. (KIE abstract)