A Disease of Society Cultural and Institutional Responses to AIDS

The impact of AIDS cannot be adequately measured by epidemiology alone. As the editors of this volume argue, AIDS must be understood as a 'disease of society', which is challenging and changing society profoundly. Numerous books on AIDS have looked at the ways in which our social institutions, norms and values have determined how the disease has been dealt with, but this book, first published in 1991, examines the ways in which AIDS is, in turn, changing our social institutions, norms and values. It explores the impact of AIDS on the arts and popular entertainment, on our concept of family, on government and legal institutions and on the health services, and the ways in which AIDS is forcing society to come to terms with longstanding tensions between community values and individual rights.

Acknowledgments; Introduction: a disease of society: cultural and institutional responses to AIDS Dorothy Nelkin, David P. Willis and Scott V. Parris; Part I. Cultural Images: 1. The implicated and the immune: responses to AIDS in the arts and popular culture Richard Goldstein; Part II. Systems of Socialization and Control: 2. AIDS and changing concepts of family Carol Levine; 3. AIDS and the prison system Nancy Neveloff Dubler and Victor W. Sidel; 4. New rules for new drugs: the challenge of AIDS to the regulatory process Harold Edgar and David J. Rothman: Part III. Systems of Caring: 5. The culture of caring: AIDS and the nursing profession Renée C. Fox, Linda H. Aiken and Carla M. Messikomer; 6. AIDS and its impact on medical work: the culture and politics of the shop floor Charles L. Bosk and Joel E. Frader; 7. AIDS volunteering: links to the past and future prospects Suzanne C. Ouellette Kobasa; Part IV. Rights and Reciprocities: 8. AIDS and the future of reproductive freedom Ronald Bayer; 9. The poisoned gift: AIDS and blood Thomas H. Murray; 10. AIDS and the rights of the individual: toward a more sophisticated understanding of discrimination Thomas B. Stoddard and Walter Rieman; Notes on contributors; Index.

The impact of AIDS cannot be adequately measured by epidemiology alone. As the editors of this volume argue, AIDS must be understood as a 'disease of society', which is challenging and changing society profoundly.