HIV infection and certification of death.

Abstract

misleading and could only suggest to the reader that the source of the press leak was a member of one or other of our departments, which are regularly responsible for the care of the vast majority of HIV infected individuals in Birmingham. This is simply not true. Confidentiality is a fundamental tenet of the service we provide for HIV infected individuals and under no circumstances would we divulge a patient's name to the media-certainly not to provide "a focus around which to challenge... mounting complacency about AIDS," as suggested by Fitzpatrick. The article further implies that we have a "tendency to regard HIV infection as more a moral condition than a disease" and that we judge people with HIV and AIDS "according to the degree of their individual responsibility for their condition." This does not reflect the attitude of the doctors and other staff dedicated to caring for such people in Birmingham..