ABSTRACT
AIDS is having a substantial impact on health services. The increasing number of those suffering from Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is greatly taxing the capacities of public hospitals and clinics, especially in cities like New York and San Francisco. AIDS has even affected traditional procedures in medical science. The normal sequence of steps through which treatment drugs reach the public-screening by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) and then carefully controlled clinical trials—has partly been altered by AIDS activists, who have created a powerful national lobby bent on changing certain features of the health care system. AIDS has heightened tensions around certain moral dilemmas associated with current health care policy by raising issues of personal responsibility for illness and public responsibility for preventing and treating certain illnesses. AIDS also highlights several grave deficiencies in the health care system.
