Critical Study of Medical Confidentiality in HIV Patients: An Approach from Michel Foucault’s Thought

  • Post category:In Progress

The recently enacted HIV law in Argentina, which incorporates the principles of comprehensiveness and multisectorality as key strategies in the fight against the epidemic, marks a significant improvement over the previous AIDS law, which was characterized by a biologicist and sanitarist approach. The new law adopts a social approach to HIV, informed by a gender and human rights perspective, and focuses on the social determinants of health and the elimination of stigma. However, the regulations implementing the law establish a special confidentiality regime for individuals living with HIV, granting healthcare professionals the discretion to disclose a patient’s seropositive status if they deem it necessary to prevent a greater harm. Through the lens of Michel Foucault’s thought, this project argues that the new HIV law perpetuates a gender and sexuality apparatus that reduces confidentiality to an “abstract legalism,” thereby hindering the effective implementation of formal norms enacted and promulgated in accordance with the Argentine National Constitution. This, in turn, creates obstacles and limitations that undermine the effectiveness of inclusive measures.