Attitudes towards people with HIV/AIDS: entropy and health care ethics

Attitudes held by health care workers towards people with HIV and AIDS are on the whole negative, and numerous studies confirm the reality and complexity of this tendency. This paper will provide a related literature review, and identify four particular factors that go some way towards explaining the robustness of these attitudes. These are social, psychological, political and anthropological in nature. A model from classical physics will be used metaphorically to illustrate and articulate the apparent inevitability of this harmful process, and also a possible solution.