AIDS poses an unparalleled challenge for health policy makers seeking methods to reduce its spread and to help ensure public safety consistent with the protection of individual rights. Pressure is mounting on public health officials to consider compulsory infection control strategies. Programs of contact notification can occur on 2 levels: voluntary notification by the client or statutory notification by the public health department. There are strong reasons against statutory contact tracing as a health response to the AIDS epidemic: the direct public health benefits would be marginal and the introduction of intrusive measures would seriously undermine other existing public health efforts to contain the spread of the disease. The probable outcome of statutorily mandated investigation of sexual contacts is that individuals vulnerable to HIV infection would not come forward for testing impeding epidemiologic and public education efforts. For many reasons general isolation is not a feasible public health measure to control the spread of HIV infection. The tension between public health and civil liberties is most apparent when a decision must be taken whether to restrict the freedom of a recalcitrant individual one who intentionally and continously refuses to comply with reasonable public health directives. In the absence of successful behavioral alteration or scientific intervention society is beginning to look to the law. There is increasing pressure on public health officials to mark the gravity of the AIDS epidemic by introducing more coercive measures. When dispassionately examined however most legal and regulatory proposals would have little or even a counterproductive impact on the spread of the HIV infection. They also impose disproportionate restrictions on the liberty autonomy and privacy of persons vulverable to HIV infection. The only conclusion that can be drawn therefore is that compulsory legal interventions will not provide a fair and effective means of interrupting the spread of the AIDS epidemic.