Emerging AIDS Pandemic Given Necessary Spotlight in Highly Personalized Book, July 1, 2006

By 

Ed Uyeshima (San Francisco, CA USA) – See all my reviews

  

  

  

  

Even with the majesty of the recent HBO production of Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America” still fresh in our collective psyches, it is astounding how this plague continues to spread unabated. In fact, it seems to be going undercover yet again at a time when a new surge of HIV is most definitively on its way. The palpable danger of HIV/AIDS comes to searing life in medical anthropologist Susan Hunter’s blistering book, the third she has tackled on this subject (the first two dealing with the AIDS epidemics in Africa and Asia). While she can get somewhat didactic, her points are well supported, the most significant being that our social, political, and economic systems have been deeply compromised by fundamentalist Christian doctrine.

The statistics are shocking yet inevitable once it becomes clear how half-hearted efforts have been to thwart the disease. According to the Center for Disease Control, between 2002 and 2003, the U.S. experienced a surge in new HIV infections and crossed the million milestone in 2005. Yet, it’s the human face that Hunter brings to AIDS that makes her book resonate as deeply as it does. She has developed a heartbreaking narrative primarily derived from extensive interviews she held with Tom and Paige Swanberg of Billings, Montana and their families. Through Tom’s infection, they become the vehicle by which we recognize the intractable connection points among the various religious, political, economic, and social forces that have actually increased the number of AIDS cases here.

While the personal impact of the Swanbergs highlights both strengths and weaknesses in character that Hunter documents in moving detail, there is also the not-so-startling revelation of an enormous and fatally flawed political system and medial infrastructure dictated by ignorance and presumptive thinking. The exploitation of the epidemic has been sadly seen by some as an excuse to manifest their greed and allow the public to live in fantasy about the current state of disease. What has resulted is a shift in the chief demographic of HIV/AIDS from an exclusively male populace toward the perceived fringes, specifically teenagers who are too young to know about the first outbreak in the 1980’s and aging baby boomers who think they are part of a pre-AIDS generation. In fact, one of the most poignant stories in the book is about Susan Howe, a sixty-year-old Pittsburgh activist infected ten years ago in a brutal rape.

As always, there is the prevalent perception that AIDS is the disease of gays and addicts, and the government is more than willing to support this misconception to support their own agenda. The newest victims, according to Hunter, have been deliberately provided with misinformation, and once infected, they become promptly ignored by the system that s supposed to help them. Tom’s story, in particular, is a much-needed wake-up call about the importance of discriminating behavior and self-protection.

Hunter does provide hope through examples found in other parts of the world, specifically Brazil’s efforts to arrest the spread of AIDS worldwide. In deciding to provide medical treatment for all those infected with HIV, Brazil apparently prevented at least half of the new infections projected for 2002. This was done at a cost of less than 0 million spent on producing free AIDS drugs from 1997 to 2001 and translated into a savings of billion in medical costs. The author leaves the reader a sense of hope even within a seemingly insurmountable barrier against political mobilization. Her book provides an indispensable light into a long, dark tunnel.

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This book lacks scholarship, May 18, 2009

While earning rave reviews from Donald Trump (forward) and Alicia Keys (front cover), this book fails to get my vote. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a christian fundamentalist responding to Ms. Hunter’s assertion that Republicans and the Cristian right are spreading HIV/AIDS in America. Rather I am a public health professional responding to the lack of scholarship in this work.

Ms. Hunter repeats results from many studies to back up the claims she makes, but fails to adequately cite these studies. When she does cite a study often does not go into enough detail to allow one to interpret the results. For example, she talks about a study that says 80% of prostitutes have contemplated suicide, but does not say what percent of people in general contemplate suicide.

Sometimes she just doesn’t understand the scientific information she reports. She says ” Sexual arousal in the vaginal wall decrease the pain threshold 50 percent, while orgasm reduces it 100 per cent”. Of course, if this were true stimulation would make women more susceptible to pain, and orgasm would mean pure agony. I do think that Ms. Hunter meant “increases”, if not, I advise her to find a new sex partner.

My only consolation is that I checked this book out from the library and I did not waste my money on it, only my time.

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The first aid kit has a good variety …, February 26, 2000

The first aid kit has a good variety of items for use in an emergency. Bandages, medicines, even an instant cold pack. The case’s outer shell seems to be a made of good durable material. On the bad side, two of the three inner compartments don’t completely seal. They have a single Velcro strip to hold items inside. For larger items, such as a roll of gauze, this is fine. For smaller items such as band aids, this is insufficient. I would expect to open it up and get a lapful of items.

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Perfect Kit for ATV, January 9, 2009

By 

Jerry H. Bond – See all my reviews

  

  

This is exactly the kit I was looking for to keep in my ATV. It contains a generous supply of the basics for injuries and minor wounds that might occur in remote areas. Although it contains two small rolls of medical tape, I’ve found that a large roll of tape sufficient to wrap sprained ankles, wrists or to bandage a puncture wound always comes in handy. Add that item. This kit is light-weight and fits perfectly into an ATV saddle bag. The flexible nylon container allows for extra items that might be desired – and the bright-orange color keeps it easily visible in the woods if you are working an emergency away from the vehicle, so you will not lose it in the leaves.

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I really liked how compact this first aid …, February 26, 2000

I really liked how compact this first aid kit is — and it’s AMAZING how much was packed into this kit. It has OODLES of bandages and creams. It also has scissors, tape, tweezers, and wipes. The very first day I had the product, I cut my finger in the kitchen with a knife. The first aid kit was sitting there and I immediately popped it open, used the wipes to clean the cut and bandaged it up. I like the soft side of this kit. I’ve used other kits with the hard case, but this gives me some flexibility of where it can be stored. I also think because of its flexibility, it can hold more. I’m still amazed when I open it up and find all these pockets where things are stored. It even has a heat pack. I went to use the tape for bandage and said, “”Great, NO scissors.”" HA! There they were behind another item… This is a GREAT first aid kit!

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A useful short introduction to the AIDS epidemic, November 29, 2009

By 

Bojan Tunguz “Dr. Bojan Tunguz” (Greencastle, IN USA) – See all my reviews

  

  

  

HIV virus is probably the most dreaded virus in modern times, and the disease that it causes – AIDS – has come to symbolize the latter-day plague. Despite the monumental attempts at finding a cure for AIDS or at least an HIV vaccine, this disease remains almost as intractable as when it first came to wide attention in the early 1980s. In the West AIDS remains the disease that is associated with socially marginalized groups, while globally its greatest impact is on poor countries, with the sub-Saharan Africa carrying the disproportionate number of victims. In the light of all of that all of us would be amiss if we did not get a better understanding of this dreadful disease. “HIV/AIDS – A Very Short Introduction” is a good book to learn the important facts about HIV/AIDS from.

The book is filled with a lot of statistical data and many charts. It provides an astute assessment of the prevalence and the spread of AIDS throughout the world. It deals with various social, political and economic aspects of AIDS and the author covers these topics in great detail. This is a particularly good book to read if you are interested in the public policy aspects of the AIDS epidemic.

Knowing how important a book like this is for educating public about the most important facts about AIDS, it would seem uncharitable to point out its flaws. Nonetheless, here are a few issues that I had with the book and points that I think could be improved.

* The book could have used some more editing. There are quite a few awkward sentences, and many others that are rather banal.

* The book does not spend too much time on pointing out the precautions and measures that are practical and effective at preventing AIDS at the level of an individual. Obviously we can infer that being a member of any of the higher-risk groups should be avoided, but this is nowhere really spelled out not even commented upon. This might due to the fact that this book is more aimed at describing AIDS as a phenomenon, rather than influencing individual behavior, but on the other hand the author is quick to pass judgment on governments and other groups for their approach to the problem of AIDS.

* The author shows clear bias in favor of some AIDS-prevention programs and measures and in opposition to others, but at no point in this book are we given any justification (quantitative or otherwise) for this particular set of attitudes. Many of these attitudes expressed by the author have been promoted extensively in the media, and most of them do make sense, but it would have been useful in a book like this one to be more precise and give a justification for those attitudes that goes beyond what some interest group may be advocating.

* My background is in natural science, and I would have liked if more room had been given to the scientific description of the HIV virus itself – its shape, form, what makes it so virulent, and why have all attempts at creating a successful vaccine failed so far. Even in a very short introduction aimed at the general audience more scientific information would have been useful.

* The book oftentimes swerves outside of the core topic of AIDS, often offering opinions on topics such as climate change, sustainability, sexuality, big-government programs, etc. In some of these cases there is some tangential relationship to AIDS, but more often than not one gets an impression that these are just some of the author’s pet concerns and he was unable to resist the urge to put them in.

Despite its many shortcomings, this is still a very informative and important book and a useful first resource in understanding of the global AIDS epidemic.

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