AZT (Zidovudine)

Paula A. Treichler has become a singularly important voice among the significant theorists on the AIDS crisis. Dissecting the cultural politics surrounding representations of HIV & AIDS, her work has altered the field of cultural studies by establishing medicine as a legitimate focus for cultural analysis. How to Have Theory in an Epidemic is a comprehensive collection of Treichler's related writings, including revised & updated essays from the 1980s & 1990s that present a sustained argument about the AIDS epidemic from a uniquely knowledgeable & interdisciplinary standpoint. "AIDS is more than an epidemic disease," Treichler writes. "It is an epidemic of meanings." Exploring how such meanings originate, proliferate, & take hold, her essays investigate how certain interpretations of the epidemic dominate while others are obscured. They also suggest ways to understand & choose between overlapping or competing discourses. In her coverage of roughly fifteen years of the AIDS epidemic, Treichler addresses a range of key issues, from biomedical discourse & theories of pathogenesis to the mainstream media's depictions of the crisis in both developed & developing countries. She also examines representations of women & AIDS, treatment issues, & the role of activism in shaping the politics of the epidemic. Linking the AIDS tragedy to a broad spectrum of contemporary theory & culture, this collection concludes with an essay on the continued importance of theoretical thought for untangling the sociocultural phenomena of AIDS-& for tackling the disease itself. With an exhaustive bibliography of critical & theoretical writings on HIV & AIDS, this long-awaited volume will be essential to all those invested in studying the course of AIDS, its devastating medical effects, & its massive impact on contemporary culture. It should become a standard text in university courses dealing with AIDS in biomedicine, sociology, anthropology, gay & lesbian studies, women's studies, & cultural & media studies.

The result of an intensive two-year research study, this volume examines the likely course of the AIDS epidemic over the next fifteen years. Extremely well-documented and based largely on sophisticated statistical analysis, the study makes detailed forecasts of who will become sick; explores the social, political, and economic consequences of the spread of this disease; and analyzes the controversial policy choices that must be made if the epidemic is to be contained. The authors argue that current policies have failed in their efforts to combat the spread of AIDS and suggest new public policy measures aimed at dramatically reducing the spread of the virus.

Today, AIDS has been indelibly etched in our consciousness. Yet it was less than twenty years ago that doctors confronted a sudden avalanche of strange, inexplicable, seemingly untreatable conditions that signaled the arrival of a devastating new disease. Bewildered, unprepared, and pushed to the limit of their diagnostic abilities, a select group of courageous physicians nevertheless persevered. This unique collective memoir tells their story. Based on interviews with nearly eighty doctors whose lives and careers have centered on the AIDS epidemic from the early 1980s to the present, this candid, emotionally textured account details the palpable anxiety in the medical profession as it experienced a rapid succession of cases for which there was no clinical history. The physicians interviewed chronicle the roller coaster experiences of hope and despair, as they applied newly developed, often unsuccessful therapies. Yet these physicians who chose to embrace the challenge confronted more than just the sense of therapeutic helplessness in dealing with a disease they could not conquer. They also faced the tough choices inherent in treating a controversial, sexually and intravenously transmitted illness as many colleagues simply walked away. Many describe being gripped by a sense of mission: by the moral imperative to treat the disempowered and despised. Nearly all describe a common purpose, an esprit de corps that bound them together in a terrible yet exhilarating war against an invisible enemy. This extraordinary oral history forms a landmark effort in the understanding of the AIDS crisis. Carefully collected and eloquently told, the doctors' narratives reveal the tenacity and unquenchable optimism that has paved the way for taming a 20th-century plague.

AIDS has grown in just two decades from a rare disease to one that has already killed millions of men, women, and children worldwide. To help high school and college students understand the history and current status of AIDS as a social, political, psychological, public health, and cultural phenomenon, this documentary history provides 228 short and highly readable selections from primary and secondary sources of information about AIDS and HIV. Its scope covers the entire history of the epidemic from its beginnings to early 1997. The documents, many of which cannot easily be found elsewhere, will help the reader to understand and debate the many perspectives and points of view on this controversial topic.

Plague Doctors highlights culturally based differences between French and American medicine, not only in health care delivery, but in the way each system constructs the interaction between disease and the human body. This work challenges the assumption that biomedicine is uniform across the western world. The author, a medical doctor and anthropologist, provides an ethnographic look into the daily experiences of physicians and researchers, examining how members of the French and American medical communities construct their models of AIDS through discourse and practice. The book is based on a comparative study of two AIDS clinics, one in Chicago and the other in Paris. Participant observation conducted at the clinics and interviews with physicians and researchers outside the sites yielded important insights into the world of AIDS medicine.

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 fascinating and scholarly account, Virginia Berridge analyses a remarkable period in contemporary British history, and exposes the reaction of the British public and British political and medical elites to one of the most challenging issues of this century.

Community based organizations assist participants in developing social skills and familiar language for negotiating and practicing safer, non-risky behaviors. AIDS education and awareness is best achieved in local community groups through the use of interactive group sharing and non-professional language. Supportive and informed mutual aid can be extended through community based organizations and can alleviate the psychological effects of isolation, homophobia, abandonment, and political disinterest created by society at large. AIDS therapy and prevention is best accomplished in settings that encourage one-to-one communication and compassion. The seventeen authors of this masterful compilation of AIDS research and policy make a strong case for community organizations as valiant warriors in one of this century's most threatening epidemics against humanity.