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 recent years, especially since the end of the cold war, the field of global health has become increasingly linked with and central to the more traditional concerns of international relations. The spread of communicable diseases, the challenge of migrating health workers and the development of new technologies and medicines have all contributed to the ever-expanding issue of global health. International organizations such as the World Health Organization, the utilization of techniques such as the creation of the framework convention on tobacco control and the development of civil society organizations such as the Gates Foundation, have all changed the face and framework of global health. Among the many benefits to the expanding interdisciplinary study of health is the possibility of preventing millions of unnecessary deaths occurring every year. By assembling from a wide array of disciplines and fields the central works that define the field in international relations today, this innovative work explores the future of global health and the possible benefits of expanding the interdisciplinary path even further.

AIDS in the World, Vol. 1, published in 1992, was the first full analysis of mankind's global confrontation with this disease. The AIDS scene, however, has been changing so rapidly that the need for a second volume was felt much earlier than expected. In AIDS in the World II, the authors extend the international comparisons from 38 countries to the entire world, and show that the AIDS pandemic has become increasingly fragmented within the world population. They present data that takes the discussion beyond the current understanding of the vulnerability of nations and communities to the worldwide spread of HIV, engaging in a detailed exploration of the social strategies that have enabled individuals to avoid infection. Mann and Tarantola chart a course into the future based on an incisive investigation of the global pandemic and response, the crucial lessons learned from the first decade, and their expert understanding of the scientific and social dimensions of the HIV challenge. The authors explain how the variety of reactions to the pandemic has contributed to a more advanced awareness of our vulnerability to HIV/AIDS, and offer a blueprint for an expanded global prevention effort. Intended to serve the information needs of all professionals involved in AIDS research and care, this volume's accessibility and clarity of writing make it highly suitable for the general reader as well.

Paul Farmer has battled AIDS in rural Haiti and deadly strains of drug-resistant tuberculosis in the slums of Peru. A physician-anthropologist with more than fifteen years in the field, Farmer writes from the front lines of the war against these modern plagues and shows why, even more than those of history, they target the poor. This "peculiarly modern inequality" that permeates AIDS, TB, malaria, and typhoid in the modern world, and that feeds emerging (or re-emerging) infectious diseases such as Ebola and cholera, is laid bare in Farmer's harrowing memoir rife with stories about diseases and human suffering. Using field work and new scholarship to challenge the accepted methodologies of epidemiology and international health, Farmer points out that most current explanatory strategies, from "cost-effective treatment" to patient "noncompliance," inevitably lead to blaming the victims. In reality, larger forces, global as well as local, determine why some people are sick and others are shielded from risk. Yet this moving autobiography is far from a hopeless inventory of insoluble problems. Farmer writes of what can be done in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds, by physicians and medical students determined to treat those in need: whether in their home countries or through medical outreach programs like Doctors without Borders. Infections and Inequalities weds meticulous scholarship in medical anthropology with a passion for solutions—remedies for the plagues of the poor and the social illnesses that have sustained them.