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HIV transmission should be decriminalized: HIV prevention programs depend on it

Whenever there is a sensational criminal case involving HIV transmission, the media cover it with far more gusto than they usually devote to scientific advances in the field. For example, a murder trial is now taking place in Canada involving a man who has been accused of sexually transmitting HIV t...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Wainberg, Mark A
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2008
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2613399/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19046412
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1742-4690-5-108
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author Wainberg, Mark A
author_facet Wainberg, Mark A
author_sort Wainberg, Mark A
collection PubMed
description Whenever there is a sensational criminal case involving HIV transmission, the media cover it with far more gusto than they usually devote to scientific advances in the field. For example, a murder trial is now taking place in Canada involving a man who has been accused of sexually transmitting HIV to 11 different women, two of whom have died of their infections. Moreover, it is alleged that the accused perpetrator deliberately withheld from these women the fact that he was HIV-positive and that he refused to use a condom during intercourse. Notwithstanding that the suspect is possibly psychopathic and uncaring, or possibly of low intelligence and unable to assess the consequence of his actions, most people probably hope that he is convicted, sentenced, and imprisoned for his acts. Furthermore, most people probably wish for the criminal justice system to pursue these cases with vigour. In fact, however, people should understand that such legal action, and the willingness of the courts to hear these cases, will only weaken the global battle against HIV transmission.
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spelling pubmed-26133992009-01-03 HIV transmission should be decriminalized: HIV prevention programs depend on it Wainberg, Mark A Retrovirology Editorial Whenever there is a sensational criminal case involving HIV transmission, the media cover it with far more gusto than they usually devote to scientific advances in the field. For example, a murder trial is now taking place in Canada involving a man who has been accused of sexually transmitting HIV to 11 different women, two of whom have died of their infections. Moreover, it is alleged that the accused perpetrator deliberately withheld from these women the fact that he was HIV-positive and that he refused to use a condom during intercourse. Notwithstanding that the suspect is possibly psychopathic and uncaring, or possibly of low intelligence and unable to assess the consequence of his actions, most people probably hope that he is convicted, sentenced, and imprisoned for his acts. Furthermore, most people probably wish for the criminal justice system to pursue these cases with vigour. In fact, however, people should understand that such legal action, and the willingness of the courts to hear these cases, will only weaken the global battle against HIV transmission. BioMed Central 2008-12-01 /pmc/articles/PMC2613399/ /pubmed/19046412 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1742-4690-5-108 Text en Copyright © 2008 Wainberg; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Editorial
Wainberg, Mark A
HIV transmission should be decriminalized: HIV prevention programs depend on it
title HIV transmission should be decriminalized: HIV prevention programs depend on it
title_full HIV transmission should be decriminalized: HIV prevention programs depend on it
title_fullStr HIV transmission should be decriminalized: HIV prevention programs depend on it
title_full_unstemmed HIV transmission should be decriminalized: HIV prevention programs depend on it
title_short HIV transmission should be decriminalized: HIV prevention programs depend on it
title_sort hiv transmission should be decriminalized: hiv prevention programs depend on it
topic Editorial
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2613399/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19046412
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1742-4690-5-108
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