A collection of essays on the 'pre-history' of the impact of AIDS, and its subsequent history.

Viewing contemporary history from the perspective of the AIDS crisis, Jennifer Brier provides rich, new understandings of the United States' complex social and political trends in the post-1960s era. Brier describes how AIDS workers--in groups as disparate as the gay and lesbian press, AIDS service organizations, private philanthropies, and the State Department--influenced American politics, especially on issues such as gay and lesbian rights, reproductive health, racial justice, and health care policy, even in the face of the expansion of the New Right. Infectious Ideas places recent social, cultural, and political events in a new light, making an important contribution to our understanding of the United States at the end of the twentieth century.

Society was not prepared in 1981 for the appearance of a new infectious disease, but we have since learned that emerging and reemerging diseases will continue to challenge humanity. AIDS at 30 is the first history of HIV/AIDS written for a general audience that emphasizes the medical response to the epidemic. Award-winning medical historian Victoria A. Harden approaches the AIDS virus from philosophical and intellectual perspectives in the history of medical science, discussing the process of scientific discovery, scientific evidence, and how laboratories found the cause of AIDS and developed therapeutic interventions. Similarly, her book places AIDS as the first infectious disease to be recognized simultaneously worldwide as a single phenomenon. After years of believing that vaccines and antibiotics would keep deadly epidemics away, researchers, doctors, patients, and the public were forced to abandon the arrogant assumption that they had conquered infectious diseases. By presenting an accessible discussion of the history of HIV/AIDS and analyzing how aspects of society advanced or hindered the response to the disease, AIDS at 30 illustrates for both medical professionals and general readers how medicine identifies and evaluates new infectious diseases quickly and what political and cultural factors limit the medical community’s response.

Fifteen years ago the AIDS `epidemic' did not exist on the public agenda. In just over a decade the public and official response to the disease has resulted in the development of a whole network of organizations devoted to the study, containment, and practical treatment of AIDS. In this important and original analysis of AIDS policy, Virginia Berridge examines the speed and nature of the official (and unofficial) response to this new and critical historical event. The policy reaction in Britain passed through three stages. From 1981-1986 the outbreak of a new contagious disease led to public alarm and social stigmatization, with a lack of scientific certainty about the nature of the disorder. AIDS was a new and open policy area - there were no established departmental, local, or health authority mechanisms for dealing with the problem. This was a period of policy development from below, with relatively little official action and many voluntary initiatives behind the scenes. This phase was succeeded in 1986-1987 by a brief stage of quasi-wartime emergency, in which national politicians and senior civil servants intervened, and a high-level political response emerged. The response was a liberal one of `safe sex' and harm minimization rather than draconian notification or isolation of carriers. The author demonstrates that despite the `Thatcher revolution'in government in the 1980s, crisis could still stimulate a consensual response. The current period of `normalization' of the disease sees panic levels subsiding as the rate of growth slows and the fear of the unknown recedes. Official institutions have been established and formal procedures adopted and reviewed; paid professionals have replaced the earlier volunteers. The 1990s have seen change in the liberal consensus towards a harsher response and the partial repoliticization of AIDS. In this fascinating and scholarly account, Virginia Berridge analyses a remarkable period in contemporary British history, and exposes the reaction of the British political and medical elites, and of the British public to one of the most challenging issues of this century.

Brazil’s public policy response to the AIDS epidemic preceded those of many developing countries. During my tenure as President, in 1996, Brazil adopted a law guaranteeing free and universal access to AIDS treatment for all people living with HIV/AIDS. Brazil became the first developing country to provide publicly-financed AIDS treatment for all people living with HIV/AIDS. We now have one of the world’s most successful AIDS programs that is considered a model for other dev- oping countries. Today, 185,000 people receive life-saving AIDS cocktails in Brazil, and thousands of lives have been saved. But this was not an easy battle. There were many challenges along the way. Twenty years ago, Brazil’s achie- ments today might have seemed impossible. During the 1980s, in Brazil, as elsewhere, there was overwhelming stigma associated with AIDS; people living with HIV often lost their jobs and died quickly before the advent of life-saving antiretroviral drugs. Brazil’s AIDS movement was extraordinarily important in promoting progressive AIDS policies; associations of people living with HIV were the first to denounce pervasive AIDS-related discri- nation and called public attention to the importance of AIDS. Activists protested in the streets for over a decade, engaged the media, and framed AIDS as a human rights issue.

The Face of AIDS film archive at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, consists of more than 700 hours of unedited and edited footage, shot over a period of more than thirty years and all over the world by filmmaker and journalist Staffan Hildebrand. The material documents the HIV/AIDS pandemic and includes scenes from conferences and rallies, and interviews with activists, physicians, people with the infection, and researchers. It represents a global historical development from the early years of the AIDS crisis to a situation in which it is possible to live a normal life with the HIV virus. This volume brings together a range of academic perspectives – from media and film studies, medical history, gender studies, history, and cultural studies – to bear on the archive, shedding light on memories, discourses, trauma, and activism. Using a medical humanities framework, the editors explore the influence of historical representations of HIV/AIDS and stigma in a world where antiretroviral treatment has fundamentally altered the conditions under which many people diagnosed with HIV live. Organized into four sections, this book begins by introducing the archive and its role, setting it in a global context. The first part looks at methodological, legal and ethical issues around archiving memories of the present which are then used to construct histories of the past; something that can be particularly controversial when dealing with a socially stigmatized epidemic such as HIV/AIDS. The second section is devoted to analyses of particular films from the archive, looking at the portrayal of people living with HIV/AIDS, the narrative of HIV as a chronic illness and the contemporary context of particular films. The third section looks at how stigma and trauma are negotiated in the material in the Face of AIDS film archive, discussing ideas about suffering and culpability. The final section contributes perspectives on and by the filmmaker as activist and auteur. This interdisciplinary collection is placed at the intersection of medical humanities, sexuality studies and film and media studies, continuing a tradition of studies on the cultural and social understandings of HIV/AIDS.

This book is aimed initially at students who want to study the history of the Aids epidemic but who currently have no starting point from which to enter the vast and often technical literature. Other readers will also find it a helpful introduction to a subject of immense contemporary importance. This book explains the origins and nature of the virus and the unique epidemic it has caused: the progress of the epidemic across the African continent; the circumstances that have made its impact so severe; the responses of governments, international bodies and NGOs; the moral and political controversies; the effect on households, social systems and economics; the care of the sick and the search for remedies and vaccines; and the impact of antiretroviral treatments. This book uses medical, anthropological and eye-witness sources but assumes no prior knowledge. Professor Iliffe has forty years experience of teaching in Africa and Britain. His books on modern African history are renowned. North America: Ohio U Press; South Africa: Double Storey/Juta

Epstein shows the extent to which AIDS research has been a social and political phenomenon and how the AIDS movement has transformed biomedical research practices through its capacity to garner credibility by novel strategies.

Publisher Description

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.