America's Dilemma in Public Health about AIDS

After giving a brief overview of the major focus of Shilts' book, the paper will equalize and contrast the sociological implications that the ideas presented by Shilts have on portions of successor social system. Finally, the paper will conclude with a elemental synthesis of the problem of acquired immune deficiency syndrome in social theory and will formulate some further possibilities.

The book, And the Band contend On, is an account of the health check and societal events that conduct to the epizootic cognize as AIDS. In basic terms, Shilts (1987) is concerned with the behavior the epidemic spreading, and the reasons the disease became so serious before it was considered any var. of a social priority by the governmental and medical systems in the United States.

Shilts is of the opinion that the reason AIDS spread so quickly, and became such a public health problem, was that, during the Reagan Administration, officials were much concerned with budget development than with public health, and that the medical alliance of interests was more concerned with research and grant money than truly helping inn in its struggle against the disease. Combined with these interpretations, Shilts believes that it was the really nature of AIDS, and its primary attack on the homosexual club that gave the affliction its stigma. In Shilts

Mendel, A.P. (1961). The inwrought works of Marxism. New York: Bantam.

In terms of social order, weber structures his arguments more toward the relationship (real or imagines) between the conflicts in redbrick hostelry and the individuals needs. Thus, even if a subgroup within society was at risk (e.g.)homosexuals), then society as a full would still be at risk since it takes individuals to make up a whole. Moreover, the medical community had, by now, realized that AIDS was a serious disease not confined to only one segment of the population. Using Weber in this view, community becomes more important and the very survival of society lies with the way it establishes a relationship with its members who are in need (Shilts, 1987, pp. 354-356, 399-402).

nevertheless then will the larger whole be suitable to utilize the labor potential of its members and return to a farming of mutual productivity.

People died while Reagan administration officials ignored pleas from government scientists . . .

Using Durkheim as a model, one can pronto transfer the "sickness" of society into the general attitude close AIDS as presented by Shilts. For instance, in many cases, quirkiness is considered criminal. Comments about AIDS ranged from "they deserve it," to "it's God's punishment." Even members of the Federal section of Health and Human Services initially considered the problem to be minor and localized (Shilts, 1987, p. 294, passim). For Durkheim, the criminality in the epidemic is that society not only allowed it to spread, but criminalized a subgroup in society simply because they were at risk for AIDS itself.

People died and nix paid attention because the mass media did not like masking piece stories about homosexuals (1987, pp. xxii-xxiii).

Emile Durkheim (1984) believed that social solidarity was engendered by the collective conscience and that this led to a distinct pattern in society that he called "normal" and "pathological." Societies were likened to the
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