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Volume 4, Issue 1 (1988) Special Issue on AIDS


On occasion, the New England Journal of Public Policy will devote an entire issue to consideration of a public policy matter of major importance. The AIDS epidemic is such a matter, with a likely impact of overwhelming consequence well into the twenty-first century. The epidemic raises fundamental questions regarding the nature of individual freedom, our responsibilities to others, the always delicate balance between private rights and the public interest, and society's obligation to its "out" groups — whose members it has stigmatized, discriminated against, ridiculed, and treated as less than full and equal citizens. Indeed, it requires us to ask whether society can discharge its responsibilities in this regard without discarding some of its essential myths about itself.

These are questions which in the best of times we tend to avoid, because they raise issues about the nature of our most deeply rooted fears and anxieties and the role of repression and denial in the conduct of private morality and public affairs — issues that we find discomforting at best and highly disconcerting at worst.

There is hardly an area of public policy that does not fall within the purview of the epidemic, and as the extent of infection and the illnesses associated with it multiply geometrically over the coming years, our cultural, social, religious, educational, financial, and political networks and institutions will be called upon to examine their practices and policies and to address what is found wanting. The purpose of this issue of the New England Journal of Public Policy is partly to facilitate that task.

Front Matter

Editor's Note

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Editor's Note
Padraig O'Malley

Articles

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AIDS: An Overview
Loretta McLaughlin

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Epidemiology and Health Policy Imperatives for AIDS
Katherine Hill Chavigny, Sarah L. Turner, and Anne K. Kibrick

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Other Journeys
Phillip Dross

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AIDS: Prophecy and Present Reality
Victor De Gruttola and William Ira Bennett

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Ethical Issues in AIDS Research
Michael A. Grodin, Paula V. Kaminow, and Raphael Sassower

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Medical Care of AIDS in New England: Costs and Implications
Stewart J. Landers and George R. Seage III

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AIDS and New England Hospitals
Jesse Green, Neil Wintfeld, Madeleine Singer, and Kevin Schulman

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A Crisis in Insurance
Benjamin Lipson

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We Were There
Irene Burns

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The Role of Education in AIDS Prevention
George A. Lamb and Linette G. Liebling

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

Book Review

Back Matter

Editors

Editor
Padraig O'Malley
Book Reviews
Shaun O'Connell
Copy Editor
Toni Jean Rosenberg
Managing Editor
Betsy Anne Youngholm
Design Coordinator
Candace Chick