On the highlights page1 in the Jan. 11, 2000, issue of CMAJ, what is the relevance of the photograph under the headline "HIV complacency" to the synopsis or the articles described? Are the innocent children complacent about HIV, or were they the young gay and bisexual men in Vancouver?
I hope I am right in assuming that informed consent of the children and their parents was obtained for the photograph to (1) be taken and (2) be published without masking the faces.
Appendix 1
[Editor's note:]
The image was chosen to highlight editorialist Brian Willoughby's1 concern for populations, such as children in sub-Saharan Africa, who face the prospect and the toll of HIV infection and AIDS2 with little hope of sharing in the pharmacological advances available in Europe and North America. CMAJ is committed to the policy of obtaining consent from patients before publication of personal and medical Einformation about them. However, the issues that surround this policy can become complex, and one might reasonably expect to run into grey areas from time to time.3 In the present case, the image was taken from a stock photo library and was used to draw attention to a population at risk. There was no disclosure of personal or medical information.
Reference
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Appendix: References
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