Description of Global AIDS: Myths and Facts.
Today, 42 million people are living with HIV/AIDS—the vast majority of them
in the developing world.
Yet even as life-prolonging treatment with antiretrovirals has become the standard
of care in the United States and other affluent countries, those afflicted in
low-income countries are fighting the disease without access to minimal care
or drugs. In fact, according to the UN, only 300,000 people in poor countries
are receiving antiretrovirals.
Global AIDS: Myths and Facts shatters 10 myths about HIV/AIDS treatment
and prevention—such as "AIDS is an African problem," "treatment
in developing countries is not technically feasible," and the myth of "limited
resources"—while calling for an international movement to fight the disease.
Carefully documented and thoughtfully written, Global AIDS is invaluable
for anyone wishing to understand the roots of the AIDS crisis in poor countries.
The authors also address the media's role in "myth making," the real
promise of vaccine research, and how activism has changed drug patenting laws.
Table of Contents
Preface by Zackie Achmat
Introduction by Paul Farmer
HIV/AIDS Basics
1 Myth One: AIDS and Africa
2 Myth Two: Dangerous Behavior
3 Myth Three: Corruption
4 Myth Four: Prevention vs. Treatment?
5 Myth Five: Obstacles to AIDS Treatment
6 Myth Six: Vaccines
7 Myth Seven: Profits vs. Health
8 Myth Eight: Limited Resources
9 Myth Nine: Nothing to Gain
10 Myth Ten: Nothing We Can Do
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Excerpt
Myth: The best way to control AIDS in the developing world is by putting all available resources into stronger prevention programs. In developing countries, costly treatment for people already infected with HIV should wait until prevention programs have been fully funded and deployed.
Response: Until the mid-1990s, the public health battle against AIDS in both rich and poor countries focused almost entirely on efforts to prevent new HIV infections, because no effective treatment for AIDS existed. Prevention during the first 15 years of the epidemic gradually grew more sophisticated: from behavioral education and condom promotion, HIV counseling and testing, to the treatment of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) that can facilitate HIV transmission, and the blocking of mother-to-child transmission of HIV with drugs such as AZT.1
Advances in knowledge have strengthened the response to AIDS, yet, with each increment in technology, the gap between rich and poor has widened. In 1996, when highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) was introduced at the XI International Conference on AIDS in Vancouver, the gap became a chasm. In North America and Europe, HAART dropped AIDS mortality rates dramatically and improved life quality for people with AIDS.2 At a cost of more than $10,000 per patient per year, HAART became and remains the standard of care for AIDS in weal...
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Praise
"An invaluable resource, Global AIDS offers information and analysis to incite readers to action. Informative, passionate, global in scope, often political in tone, the book balances the text with personal stories that bring the crisis home."
—Pearl Cleage, Black Issues Book Review
"This is an inspiring book written by broad-minded authors who are driven by high moral and civic standards and who refuse to accept social injustice toward the poor of the developing world, people whose dignity is denied and whose access to lifesaving treatments is hampered. As such, this book is truly motivating."
—Shlomo Maayan, Hadassah University AIDS Center (Jerusalem)
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