[Media Watch] Criminalising transmission of infections

In their new work Criminalising Contagion: Legal and Ethical Challenges of Disease Transmission and the Criminal Law, Catherine Stanton and Hannah Quirk reiterate the existing orthodoxy that criminalising contagion is bad. In a nutshell, doing so makes ill people's lives more onerous, and stigmatises illness, deterring those who suspect they might be afflicted, from getting diagnosed and thereupon treatment, and incentivising them to continue, officially at least, as uninfected. Their officially uninfected status thus frees them from the burdens of disclosure and liabilities that might attach to their desired actions, were they indeed known to be suffering with a condition.
Source: The Lancet Infectious Diseases - Category: Infectious Diseases Authors: Tags: Media Watch Source Type: research