Confronting AIDS: Directions for Public Health, Health Care, and Research

One need only walk through the health section of a bookstore to see the plethora of books on almost every aspect of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Most are informative, but many fall short in one way or another of meeting the current needs of someone looking for an objective review of the many complex issues embodied in the AIDS epidemic. Better than any other book,Confronting AIDSsucceeds in doing this. Using a committee of nationally and internationally respected scientists, scholars, and clinicians, the Institute of Medicine—National Academy of Sciences—held two public meetings and also invited a number of individuals to provide reports on the broad range of issues raised by the AIDS crisis—not only medical, but issues related to public health, law, economics, ethics, etc. The result is a text that has captured the complexities of the disease in a concise and straightforward manner. Rather than a collection