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Philosopher Patrick Derr teaches courses on medical and environmental ethics. He is particularly interested in ethical issues surrounding HIV/AIDS and inadequacies in current codes of ethical conduct for medical research. |
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A deadly exception to the rule: the politics of HIV/AIDS
Professor Patrick Derr's research
“Some of the more flagrant instances
of AIDS exceptionalism are almost comic. The
claim that the AIDS epidemic was sent by God to punish homosexuals, for example,
replaces ‘God is dead’ theology with ‘God is inept’ theology:
what bungling deity aiming thunderbolts at a few thousand adult males in
San Francisco would miss by 10,000 miles and kill 5 million children in
Sub-Saharan Africa?”
Philosopher Patrick Derr devotes much of his time to investigating questions
concerning medical and environmental ethics. In his chapter "The AIDS
Pandemic" in Homosexuality and American Public Life Derr argues that if Americans persist in
ignoring the truth about how HIV/AIDS is transmitted and in seeing HIV/AIDS as a punishment from God for homosexual behavior,
we as a society will avoid our moral duty to do what we can to halt the spread
of HIV/AIDS both at home and abroad.
Hover over a symbol for more information about HIV/AIDS. (Internet Explorer only)
AIDS exceptionalism is a phrase coined to characterize how U. S. social
attitudes about HIV/AIDS have caused the disease to be treated differently by
public health officials and others concerned with containing its spread.
Fears in the gay community about homophobia combined with homophobic prejudice
that sees HIV/AIDS as a "gay disease" have made the treatment of
HIV/AIDS a politically difficult issue. Such attitudes have prevented the
disease from being treated effectively in the U. S., and hampered U. S. efforts
to control the spread of the disease abroad where it has reached epidemic
proportions.
In his chapter "The AIDS Pandemic" in Homosexuality and American
Public Life (ed. Christopher Wolfe,1999), Professor
Derr presents extensive statistics that emphatically counteract the stereotype
of HIV/AIDS as a "gay" disease. His statistics reveal the appalling
degree to which HIV/AIDS afflicts children, prostitutes, heterosexual men and
women, and intravenous drug users throughout the world. He also discusses the
implications of different types of HIV/AIDS on the way the disease is
transmitted. There are two types of HIV, HIV-1 and HIV2, and HIV-1 has been
classified into 9 subtypes. Different types of sexual practices seem to favor
the transmission of different strains of the disease, further contradicting the
notion of HIV/AIDS as a disease resulting solely from homosexual encounters.
What are the ethical questions that apply to the treatment and prevention
of HIV/AIDS? Are the wealthy to be favored over the poor? Are Americans to be
favored over other members of the global community? Should IV drug users be
provided with sterile needles to help contain the spread of HIV? Derr points out
several examples of how social attitudes have negatively impacted treatment of
HIV/AIDS and threatened the survival of millions of people around the world:
- Vaccine development for the prevention of HIV/AIDS has been under-funded in
the U. S. compared to drug treatment for persons already suffering from the
disease. Expensive drug treatment, while helpful to sufferers in the
developed world who can afford it, is too costly to be available in the
developing world. From the perspective of the global community, a
development of a vaccine would be a
better use of limited resources.
- The condoning of prostitution, particularly child prostitution, by many
persons in both the developed and developing worlds has grave negative
implications for the spread of HIV/AIDS. Prostitution is an important industry, notably in many Asian countries, and "sex tours" to that
region are patronized by U. S. and European businessmen.
- Despite the fact that demographers familiar with
the HIV/AIDS epidemic no longer see overpopulation as a risk in the
countries of Africa south of the Sahara, the Clinton administration placed
priority on population control there at the expense of HIV control.
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Additional Resources
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 Professor Patrick Derr
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Undergrad research in medical ethics makes a difference
Two undergraduates who had
previously worked with Derr as teaching assistants in his Medical Ethics
class spent a
month preparing an analysis of medical literature on the concept of clinical
futility. Their work was later placed in evidence during Derr's testimony as
an expert witness in a landmark legal case involving futility and patients'
rights.
Derr has also worked with
approximately two dozen undergraduate students, along with a graduate
assistant, to prepare a set of case studies which will appear in a book
tentatively entitled Case Studies in Environmental Ethics.
When Jeremy Child '02 completed his report on herbicides and power lines, Derr suggested
that he send a copy to the environmental officer of the New England regional
power grid. A month later Jeremy received a call from the officer with
the offer of paid position created just for him.
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