An AIDS lexicon.

AIDS The sudden appearance of a truly new disease is a wake-up call. A new global pandemic of an infectious agent, transmitted through sexual contact and blood, aVecting alienated and/or deprived people and communities, infectious throughout, that causes a slowly progressive breakdown of defence against other infectious diseases, as well as causing dementia in some, and leads to a premature death, occurring in an era of extensive travel and rapid communication, is a veritable tocsin. These crude ingredients of AIDS as a medical and social phenomenon, blended with the poignant personal histories revealed to clinical professionals, spiced — as if this were necessary — by the fear, the prejudice, the wild theorising and the voyeurism, have presented a substantial challenge to practical medical ethics. Familiar ethical debates have been reopened with new perspective and insight, others have been examined thoroughly for the first time. Building on the major developments in medical ethics over recent decades, AIDS has provided an opportunity, indeed a necessity, for its maturation. It continues to present new issues for debate, while those that were present from the outset continue to perplex us, as this issue of the journal should show. In teaching, AIDS oVers a plethora of examples to illustrate most of the central tenets and tensions of medical ethics. As an exemplar, it has provided preparation and precedent for addressing some of the issues emerging from new challenges, such as screening for susceptibility to genetic disease. AJP