PMID: 8961412Dec 1, 1996Paper

Infinitesimal risk as public health crisis: news media coverage of a doctor-patient HIV contact tracing investigation

Social Science & Medicine
J BrownD Lupton

Abstract

Among the most prominent health or medical stories covered in 1994 by the Australian news media was that concerning an HIV positive hospital obstetrician and the attempt by the New South Wales Health Department to trace and test 149 women on whom he had operated. All press and television coverage of the issue was reviewed. The surface news narrative of the search for missing, "innocent" mothers potentially infected with a deadly and infectious illness is shown to serve as a "hard news" pretext enabling a wider major discourse to operate about a health system accused as being captive to gay and civil libertarian politics, allowing "guilty" doctors at high risk of HIV to endanger "innocent" patients. Expert consensus held that the women were at "infinitesimal risk" of acquiring HIV. However, media accounts of the investigation all but belied this, illustrating that the news media's framing of risk has more to do with its reproduction of moral outrage components than with "scientific" notions of calculable risk.

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Citations

May 20, 2003·Social Science & Medicine·Darrin Hodgetts, Kerry Chamberlain
Jun 1, 2000·The New England Journal of Medicine·R MoynihanS B Soumerai
Jul 19, 2006·Journal of Health Communication·Juanne N ClarkeLaurie Hoffman-Goetz
Jan 15, 2004·The Neurologist·Ralph D Richardson, Charles C Engel
Aug 26, 2009·European Journal of Emergency Medicine : Official Journal of the European Society for Emergency Medicine·Kenneth W J Heng, Alicia Vasu
Jun 18, 1998·Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health·S Chapman
Jun 5, 2004·Injury Prevention : Journal of the International Society for Child and Adolescent Injury Prevention·S M Connor, K Wesolowski
Apr 15, 2004·Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health·S Chapman
Dec 10, 2003·Journal of Medical Ethics·M Spriggs, T Charles
Jan 1, 2003·African Journal of AIDS Research : AJAR·Mark Connelly, Catriona Macleod
Apr 19, 2003·Journal of Internal Medicine·K C Lowe, E Ferguson
Jan 1, 1997·Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health·S Dwyer
Feb 9, 2006·Journal of Health Psychology·Darrin Hodgetts, Kerry Chamberlain
Jul 17, 1999·Medical Care·C DeCosterE Minish
Aug 24, 2021·Health·Elena Vaughan, Martin Power

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