Gerald M. Oppenheimer, PhD, MPH and Ronald Bayer, PhD
The alarm generated by the AIDS epidemic left civil liberties proponents fearful that traditional public health responses might be imposed on newly susceptible or infected populations.
With heterosexual transmission the chief cause of global HIV spread, those without the power to select sexual partners, choose the timing of sexual encounters, or insist on safer sex practices are unable to protect themselves from infection.
Discussing CAM offers an opportunity to study the development of basic medical science that refuted vitalism, homeopathy, humoral theory, miasma theory, the doctrine of signatures, and other prescientific myths that persist today.
Laurel J. Lyckholm, MD and Arwa K. Aburizik, MD, MS
Decision-making capacity can be preserved in patients with mental illness and should be formally assessed in the context of their values and past decisions.
Protecting one’s moral integrity may require a conscience clause that protects positive conscience claims by permitting individuals to perform actions that are otherwise prohibited by legal or institutional rules.