JonathanMann, HIV/AIDS, and Human Rights ELIZABETH FEE1 and MANON PARRY* 1 National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA, E-mail: feee@mail.nih.gov HJniversity of Maryland, 1102 Holzapfel Hall College Park, MD20742. E-mail: mparry@umd.edu Correspondence: Manon Parry, University of Maryland, 1102 Holzapfel Hall College Park, MD20742. E-mail: mparry@umd.edu ABSTRACT The early association of HIV/AIDS with marginal groups - homosexuals and IV drug users - structured social and political responses to the disease. Many countries began to enact restrictive travel policies and to contemplate compulsory testing or quarantine for those infected. In Africa, Jonathan Mann became convinced that the disease was heterosexually transmitted and had the potential to become a worldwide pandemic. He convinced Halfden Mahler, Director General of WHO, who appointed him director of the WHO's Global Programme on AIDS. In this position, and because of his eloquence and passion, Mann was able to mobilize ministers of health around the world. Mann argued that AIDS was a social disease, flourishing in conditions of poverty, oppression, urban migration, gender inequality, and violence. He advanced a new way of understanding AIDS and AIDS policies based on a human rights framework. Journal of Public Health Policy (2008) 29, 54-71. doi:io.iO57/palgrave.jphp.32ooi6o Keywords:AIDS, health, human rights, Jonathan Mann, World Health Organization HUMAN RIGHTS AND HIV/AIDS The first account of what would become the world's largest pandemic was published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report of the Centersfor Disease Control and Prevention in June 198 1. An editorial note accompanying the paper statedthat "thefact that these [five] patients were all homosexuals suggests an association between some aspect of a homosexual lifestyle or a disease acquired through sexual contact and Pneumocystis pneumo- nia in this population(1)". In the United States, the earliest identifi- cation of AIDS as a gay disease, a "gay cancer," or a "gay plague" journal of Public Health Policy 2008, 29, 54-71 © 2008 Palgrave MacmillanLtd 0197-5897/08 $30.00 ^jL www.palgrave-journals.com/jphp sv* This content downloaded from 146.50.82.219 on Wed, 4 Dec 2013 10:13:05 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions