# Doctor confidentiality, HIV, and what feels right **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 21, 2012, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-confidentiality-hiv-and-what-feels-right/628959 "2012-07-21T15:20:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2012, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-confidentiality-hiv-and-what-feels-right/628959/41 "2012-07-23T10:20:36Z")
> [@humblebumble](#): > > Do you think people with HIV treat themselves as subhuman? > > Would you treat someone with HIV as subhuman? No to both questions, but I would treat someone who had an STD and hadn’t told me when I brought the issue up as a liar. If a hypothetical partner knew he had an STD and hadn’t had the balls to tell me, he better not be in the room when I found out. He’d learn new words of the variety your grandma doesn’t want you to know. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2012, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-confidentiality-hiv-and-what-feels-right/628959/42 "2012-07-23T10:46:52Z")
> [@kob09](#): > > infecting someone knowingly or not inform a person you live with about the risk is illegal here as well > recently I visited a friend I hadn’t seen for a while and he told me that he is HIV positive but he doesn’t want to reveal it to his daughter who lives with him. I think it’s irrespobsible from him to not tell his 15-year old daughter what’s going on as accidental infection is not 100% excluded if she doesn’t have a chance to be careful … > . :eek: WHAT? ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2012, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-confidentiality-hiv-and-what-feels-right/628959/43 "2012-07-23T21:46:11Z")
> [@kob09](#): > > infecting someone knowingly or not inform a person you live with about the risk is illegal here as well > > recently I visited a friend I hadn’t seen for a while and he told me that he is HIV positive but he doesn’t want to reveal it to his daughter who lives with him. I think it’s irrespobsible from him to not tell his 15-year old daughter what’s going on as accidental infection is not 100% excluded if she doesn’t have a chance to be careful … > I am not sure if I should talk to him again about the issue and try to get him to tell her. i think he has experienced a lot of rejection from people who do know and that is part of the reason he doesn’t want to tell his daughter. He does live his bi-sexuality openly, so I think the daughter is reasonable enough to hear the truth. What kind of “accidental infection” are you talking about? Is he having unprotected sex with his daughter? Are they sharing needles? Is he bleeding into her open wounds? Strictly speaking, he’s not legally or morally obligated to tell her. But in a healthy father-daughter relationship, something this important shouldn’t be kept from her . . . not because she’s in any danger, but because she’s his daughter. And you seem to be implying that he’s sexually active. Is he using protection and informing his partners? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2012, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-confidentiality-hiv-and-what-feels-right/628959/44 "2012-07-23T22:02:40Z")
I suppose accidental contact with blood is not out of the question, but it seems so unlikely as to be effectively impossible. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2012, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-confidentiality-hiv-and-what-feels-right/628959/45 "2012-07-23T22:23:39Z")
> [@humblebumble](#): > > What do you think would be a motive for unwillingness to disclose such information? It’s not exactly something that is easy to tell someone, especially someone in a relationship. > > How did it become a stigma in the first place? If it’s too hard to mention that you’re HIV positive, maybe, just maybe, you’re not ready to have sex with said person? ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-confidentiality-hiv-and-what-feels-right/628959/46 "2012-07-24T11:20:57Z")
> [@Lancia](#): > > Edit: note the date of the column; Cecil noted that the statistics used were old. Indeed. I’m pretty certain that the current statistics give a much lower risk. Especially in the case of a stable couple having sex regularly and using properly condoms. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-confidentiality-hiv-and-what-feels-right/628959/47 "2012-07-24T11:44:59Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > That’s different. In that case, the patient is the abused child, and not her abuser. The doctor has no confidentiality/protected relationship to the abuser to be violated.. And more importantly, being a sexual abuser isn’t a medical condition. So, even if the patient himself tells the doctor “I’m raping my daughter”, I see no reason why the doctor would be under any obligation not to disclose this information. Maybe I’m wrong about this, but I think that confidentiality only covers medical history. I don’t think your doctor isn’t allowed to tell people that you usually wear red shirts, for instance. Or that you’re a bank robber. I suppose one of our resident MD will come to shed some light on this. As for regulations not permitting doctors to alerting proper medical authorities as it is the case with some contagious diseases (at least over here), I think it was originally implemented so that people wouldn’t avoid disclosing their medical condition or refuse testing, as it has been said by other posters. Maybe this is outdated, now that the stigma attached to HIV is less important and that there are efficient drugs. OTOH, I’m not sure that _any_ STD can be disclosed. Over here (and I guess in all other countries) there has been people prosecuted for infecting partners while knowing they had AIDS. None succeeded (except a relatively recent case where the culprit had admitted to having deliberately infected as much people as possible for the sake of it :rolleyes: . Since there was an intent to harm, the case has been treated differently). The reasoning is that the partner is at least partly responsible. For instance, a poster said that HIV+ people engaging in bareback are assholes. Maybe, but HIV- people engaging in bareback with perfect strangers are also idiots. However, in the case of a married couple where one spouse becomes HIV+ following some extra-marital affair, learn about his condition and doesn’t disclose it to the other spouse, the responsibility of the latter is quite dubious. People are hardly going to request AIDS tests from their partners every other month. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-confidentiality-hiv-and-what-feels-right/628959.md?page=2)