The Real Aids Epidemic

Four decades after And the Band Played On created an image of the AIDS epidemic that has survived in the public consciousness to this very day, mathematician Rebecca Culshaw is sounding the alarm that everything that iconic book told us about AIDS is demonstrably wrong. And that mistaken understanding of AIDS and its cause has the potential to affect all of us, not just certain so-called risk groups. In The Real AIDS Epidemic, Rebecca Culshaw describes her slow uncovering of these reasons over her years researching HIV for her work constructing mathematical models of its interaction with the immune system. It is rare that a researcher, having studied HIV, ever expresses any doubt in the paradigm, and an even rarer event still when she abandons the field altogether. Culshaw's book, updated from its original edition, which was titled Science Sold Out, is one of the great insider-turned-whistleblower stories of our time. The Real AIDS Epidemic focuses on the politics of the changing definition of AIDS and the flaws in all HIV testing. In a much broader sense, it explains how the current, government-based structure of scientific research has corrupted science as the search for truth. It offers not only scientific reasons for HIV/AIDS being untenable, but also sociological explanations as to how the theory was accepted by the media and the world so quickly. In particular, this book offers a scathing criticism of the outrageous discriminatory measures that have been leveled at HIV-positives from the inception. She also warns that the toxic drugs being foisted on the Black and gay communities constitute one of the worst medical violations of human rights since the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. The compelling case she makes that the AIDS establishment has led us into a biomedical disaster through incompetence, fraud, and deceit will have many readers throwing their hands up and feeling helpless and hopeless. But she does something no other book that is critical about HIV and AIDS has done. She suggests a series of strategic actions the scientific community, Congress, the media, and the public can take to undo the damage that the powerful AIDS establishment has done since the epidemic began in 1981.

Europe's "Black Death" contributed to the rise of nation states, mercantile economies, and even the Reformation. Will the AIDS epidemic have similar dramatic effects on the social and political landscape of the twenty-first century? This readable volume looks at the impact of AIDS since its emergence and suggests its effects in the next decade, when a million or more Americans will likely die of the disease. The Social Impact of AIDS in the United States addresses some of the most sensitive and controversial issues in the public debate over AIDS. This landmark book explores how AIDS has affected fundamental policies and practices in our major institutions, examining: How America's major religious organizations have dealt with sometimes conflicting values: the imperative of care for the sick versus traditional views of homosexuality and drug use. Hotly debated public health measures, such as HIV antibody testing and screening, tracing of sexual contacts, and quarantine. The potential risk of HIV infection to and from health care workers. How AIDS activists have brought about major change in the way new drugs are brought to the marketplace. The impact of AIDS on community-based organizations, from volunteers caring for individuals to the highly political ACT-UP organization. Coping with HIV infection in prisons. Two case studies shed light on HIV and the family relationship. One reports on some efforts to gain legal recognition for nonmarital relationships, and the other examines foster care programs for newborns with the HIV virus. A case study of New York City details how selected institutions interact to give what may be a picture of AIDS in the future. This clear and comprehensive presentation will be of interest to anyone concerned about AIDS and its impact on the country: health professionals, sociologists, psychologists, advocates for at-risk populations, and interested individuals.

In 1981, the year when AIDS came to international attention, Randy Shilts was employed by the San Francisco Chronicle as the first openly gay journalist dealing with gay issues. He quickly devoted himself to reporting on the developing epidemic, trying to understand the cultural, medical and political impact of the disease on the gay community and United States society as a whole. Extensively researched, weaving together personal stories with political and social reporting, And the Band Played On is a masterpiece of investigative reporting that led to Randy Shilts being described as "the pre-eminent chronicler of gay life" by The New York Times. Shilts exposed why AIDS was allowed to spread - while the medical and political authorities ignored (and even denied) the threat. It was awarded the Stonewall Book Award, became an international bestseller translated into 7 languages, and was made into a major movie in 1993 starring Richard Gere and Sir Ian McKellen. And the Band Played On is one of the great works of contemporary journalism, and provides the foundation for the continuing debate about the greatest medical epidemic faced in our time.

The search for a “patient zero”—popularly understood to be the first person infected in an epidemic—has been key to media coverage of major infectious disease outbreaks for more than three decades. Yet the term itself did not exist before the emergence of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. How did this idea so swiftly come to exert such a strong grip on the scientific, media, and popular consciousness? In Patient Zero, Richard A. McKay interprets a wealth of archival sources and interviews to demonstrate how this seemingly new concept drew upon centuries-old ideas—and fears—about contagion and social disorder. McKay presents a carefully documented and sensitively written account of the life of Gaétan Dugas, a gay man whose skin cancer diagnosis in 1980 took on very different meanings as the HIV/AIDS epidemic developed—and who received widespread posthumous infamy when he was incorrectly identified as patient zero of the North American outbreak. McKay shows how investigators from the US Centers for Disease Control inadvertently created the term amid their early research into the emerging health crisis; how an ambitious journalist dramatically amplified the idea in his determination to reframe national debates about AIDS; and how many individuals grappled with the notion of patient zero—adopting, challenging and redirecting its powerful meanings—as they tried to make sense of and respond to the first fifteen years of an unfolding epidemic. With important insights for our interconnected age, Patient Zero untangles the complex process by which individuals and groups create meaning and allocate blame when faced with new disease threats. What McKay gives us here is myth-smashing revisionist history at its best.

Examines the strategies employed by the first generation of HIV-positive gay men to survive and cope and provides an understanding of how individuals cope with life-threatening diseases.

Four decades after And the Band Played On created an image of the AIDS epidemic that has survived in the public consciousness to this very day, mathematician Rebecca Culshaw is sounding the alarm that everything that iconic book told us about AIDS is demonstrably wrong. And that mistaken understanding of AIDS and its cause has the potential to affect all of us, not just certain so-called risk groups. In The Real AIDS Epidemic, Rebecca Culshaw describes her slow uncovering of these reasons over her years researching HIV for her work constructing mathematical models of its interaction with the immune system. It is rare that a researcher, having studied HIV, ever expresses any doubt in the paradigm, and an even rarer event still when she abandons the field altogether. Culshaw's book, updated from its original edition, which was titled Science Sold Out, is one of the great insider-turned-whistleblower stories of our time. The Real AIDS Epidemic focuses on the politics of the changing definition of AIDS and the flaws in all HIV testing. In a much broader sense, it explains how the current, government-based structure of scientific research has corrupted science as the search for truth. It offers not only scientific reasons for HIV/AIDS being untenable, but also sociological explanations as to how the theory was accepted by the media and the world so quickly. In particular, this book offers a scathing criticism of the outrageous discriminatory measures that have been leveled at HIV-positives from the inception. She also warns that the toxic drugs being foisted on the Black and gay communities constitute one of the worst medical violations of human rights since the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. The compelling case she makes that the AIDS establishment has led us into a biomedical disaster through incompetence, fraud, and deceit will have many readers throwing their hands up and feeling helpless and hopeless. But she does something no other book that is critical about HIV and AIDS has done. She suggests a series of strategic actions the scientific community, Congress, the media, and the public can take to undo the damage that the powerful AIDS establishment has done since the epidemic began in 1981.

The AIDS Pandemic explores the ways in which HIV/AIDS has, and continues to transform the wide range of related disciplines it touches. Novel perspectives are provided by a unique panel of internationally recognised experts who cover the unprecedented impact onf AIDS on culture, demographics and politics around the world, including how it affected the worlds' economy, health sciences, epidemiology and public health. This important far- reaching analysis uses the lessons learned from a wide array of disciplines to help us understand the current status and evolution of the pandemic, as it continues to evolve. * Unique and timely presentation of new theories and perspectives * Concentrates on the changes that have taken place in a broad array of related disciplines * Provides key contextual information, for those new to the field or at interface areas between disciplines * Includes an international focus on evolving African and Asian experiences * Focuses on the current strategies for developing vaccines and microbicides * Outlines harm reduction and prevention programs * Explores issues related to delivery of life-saving AIDS medications in resource-constrained environments

By focusing on a small town in South Carolina, this study of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the South reveals the hard truths of an ongoing and complex issue. Skerritt contends that the United States has failed to adequately address the threat of HIV and AIDS in communities of color and that taboos about love, race, and sexuality--combined with Southern conservatism, white privilege, and black oppression--continue to create an unacceptable death toll. The heartbreak of America's failure comes alive through case studies of individuals such as Carolyn, a wild child whose rebellion coincided with the advent of AIDS, and Nita, a young woman searching for love and trapped in an abusive relationship. The results are most visible at the town's segregated burial ground where dozens of young black men and women who have died from AIDS are laid to rest. Not only a call to action and awareness, this is a true story of how persons of faith, enduring love, and limitless forgiveness can inspire others by serving as guides for poor communities facing a public health threat burdened with conflicting moral and social conventions.