This paper addresses notions of ‘risk’ in the context of HIV and AIDS. It looks at how ‘risk’ is understood from the position of researchers, including sociologists and epidemiologists, and from the position of persons at risk and it describes how these understandings are related to the ways in which rights and responsibilities are also understood. In its examination of these perspectives, the paper distinguishes between ‘traditional,’ ‘modern’ and ‘social’ public healths and the ideological or moral perspectives that underpin them. It also touches upon the ways in which globalization plays into this complex field and raises questions about patents and access to treatments. My argument is that, within the ‘modern’ public health, risk is understood as relating to the individual and that this construction or ‘selected form’ is one of the reasons for the failure of public health to control HIV.‬