1. 56. Given the remote risk of HIV transmission, even during highly invasive procedures, consistent application of this informed consent approach would require disclosure of all risks equivalent to or greater than that of HIV transmission. Yet this would be impossible in professional practice, since it would require health professionals to spend the vast majority of their time counseling about risks rather than providing care. Indeed, informed consent doctrine does not require disclosure of all risks, but only of those risks deemed "significant" or "material." See Appelbaum, Lidz and Meisel, Informed Consent: Legal Theory and Clinical Practice 50-4 (1987). See, e.g., Precourt v. Frederick, 395 Mass. 689 (1985) (no duty to inform patient of serious drug side-effect if risk of harm was "so remote as to be negligible," even if the harm did occur)
2. and Pardy v. United States, 783 F.2d 710 (7th Cir. 1986) (risk of severe complication of medical procedure ranging from 1 in 14,000 to 1 in 40,000 held not significant enough to require patient's informed consent to risk). Similarly, in one English case, a court barred the publication of a newspaper article identifying two physicians with AIDS, finding that revelation of the physicians' diagnosis was not in the public interest, since the risk of transmission from them to patients was "a very small theoretical risk … that was, in practice, removed by counseling." X v. Y, 1988 All E.R. 648, 656 (Q.B.).
3. 91. 1987 Recommendations at 7S. See also Centers for Disease Control, Update: Universal Precautions for Prevention of Transmission of HIV, HBV and Other Bloodborne Pathogens in Health-Care Settings, 37 Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Rep. 377, 378 (June 24, 1988).
4. Physicians and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome: A Reply to Patients;Dickey;J. Am. Med.,1989
5. 89. 714 F. Supp. at 1390.