HIV Pioneers

HIV Pioneers
Author: Wendee M. Wechsberg
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press+ORM
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2018-07-15
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1421425734

A moving collection of firsthand accounts of the beginning of the HIV epidemic in the 1980s. Tremendous strides have been made in the prevention and treatment of HIV since the disease first appeared in the 1980s. But because many of those who studied and battled the virus in its early days are now gone, firsthand accounts are at risk of being lost. In HIV Pioneers, Wendee M. Wechsberg collects 29 “first stories” from the outset of the AIDS epidemic. These personal narratives and historical essays not only shed light on the experiences of global health pioneers, prominent scientists, and HIV survivors, but also preserve valuable lessons for managing the risk and impact of future epidemics. With unprecedented access to many key actors in the fight against AIDS and HIV, Wechsberg brings to life the harrowing reality in the beginning of the epidemic. The book captures the experiences of those still working diligently and innovatively in the field, elevating the voices of doctors, scientists, and government bureaucrats alongside those of survivors and their loved ones. Focusing on the impact that the epidemic had on careers, pieces also show how governments responded to HIV, how research agendas were developed, and how AIDS service agencies and case management evolved. Illuminating the multiple facets of the HIV epidemic, both in the United States and across the globe, HIV Pioneers is a touching and inspirational look into the ongoing fight against HIV. “Anyone interested in science, social history, communicable diseases or epidemiology would benefit from reading this topical, fascinating and inspirational book.” —Fay Hartley, British Society for the History of Medicine

AIDS Doctors

AIDS Doctors
Author: Ronald Bayer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2002-05-16
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0190288213

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.

Mapping AIDS

Mapping AIDS
Author: Lukas Engelmann
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2018-11-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 1108425771

Offers an innovative study of visual traditions in modern medical history through debates about the causes, impact and spread of AIDS.

HIV Infection in Children and Adolescents

HIV Infection in Children and Adolescents
Author: Raziya Bobat
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2020-02-27
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 3030354334

This book serves as a reference work on pediatric HIV infection and covers the full bandwidth of topics from an introduction to pathogenesis and epidemiology, over the transmission of the HI virus, to clinical manifestations, treatment, and prevention strategies. Diseases and disorders occurring in HIV infected persons are discussed in detail. The book covers special populations, such as neonates born to an HIV positive mother and adolescents and examines the specific ways of managing HIV disease in these patient groups. This is the first book to cover palliative care as well as ethical, legal and social issues of HIV infection.

A History of Haematology

A History of Haematology
Author: Shaun R. McCann
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 247
Release: 2016
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0198717601

A beautifully illustrated account of the remarkable developments within haematology, this insightful volume details the scientists and pioneers central to these advances.

The AIDS Pandemic

The AIDS Pandemic
Author: Lawrence O. Gostin
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
Total Pages: 492
Release: 2005-11-16
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 080787583X

In this collection of essays, Lawrence O. Gostin, an internationally recognized scholar of AIDS law and policy, confronts the most pressing and controversial issues surrounding AIDS in America and around the world. He shows how HIV/AIDS affects the entire population--infected and uninfected--by influencing our social norms, our economy, and our country's role as a world leader. Now in the third decade of this pandemic, the nation and the world still fail to respond to the needs of persons living with HIV/AIDS and continue to tolerate injustice in their treatment, Gostin argues. AIDS, both in the United States and globally, deeply affects poor and marginalized populations, and many U.S. policies are based on conservative moral values rather than public health and social justice concerns. Gostin tackles the hard social, legal, political, and ethical issues of the HIV/AIDS pandemic: privacy and discrimination, travel and immigration, clinical trials and drug pricing, exclusion of HIV-infected health care workers, testing and treatment of pregnant women and infants, and needle-exchange programs. This book provides an inside account of AIDS policy debates together with incisive commentary. It is indispensable reading for advocates, scholars, health professionals, lawyers, and the concerned public.

Inventing the AIDS Virus

Inventing the AIDS Virus
Author: Peter H. Duesberg
Publisher: Regnery Publishing
Total Pages: 740
Release: 1998-05-01
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 9780895263995

Investigates the political and financial forces that have shaped AIDS research, including the growing dissension within scientific ranks, the power politics among virologists, and other controversial issues

Plague Years

Plague Years
Author: Ross A. Slotten, MD
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2020-07-15
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 022671876X

In 1992, Dr. Ross A. Slotten signed more death certificates in Chicago—and, by inference, the state of Illinois—than anyone else. As a family physician, he was trained to care for patients from birth to death, but when he completed his residency in 1984, he had no idea that many of his future patients would be cut down in the prime of their lives. Among those patients were friends, colleagues, and lovers, shunned by most of the medical community because they were gay and HIV positive. Slotten wasn’t an infectious disease specialist, but because of his unique position as both a gay man and a young physician, he became an unlikely pioneer, swept up in one of the worst epidemics in modern history. Plague Years is an unprecedented first-person account of that epidemic, spanning not just the city of Chicago but four continents as well. Slotten provides an intimate yet comprehensive view of the disease’s spread alongside heartfelt portraits of his patients and his own conflicted feelings as a medical professional, drawn from more than thirty years of personal notebooks. In telling the story of someone who was as much a potential patient as a doctor, Plague Years sheds light on the darkest hours in the history of the LGBT community in ways that no previous medical memoir has.

Denying AIDS

Denying AIDS
Author: Seth C. Kalichman
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2009-01-16
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 038779476X

Paralleling the discovery of HIV and the rise of the AIDS pandemic, a flock of naysayers has dedicated itself to replacing genuine knowledge with destructive misinformation—and spreading from the fringe to the mainstream media and the think tank. Now from the editor of the journal AIDS and Behavior comes a bold exposé of the scientific and sociopolitical forces involved in this toxic evasion. Denying AIDS traces the origins of AIDS dissidents disclaimers during the earliest days of the epidemic and delves into the psychology and politics of the current denial movement in its various incarnations. Seth Kalichman focuses not on the “difficult” or doubting patient, but on organized, widespread forms of denial (including the idea that HIV itself is a myth and HIV treatments are poison) and the junk science, faulty logic, conspiracy theories, and larger forces of homophobia and racism that fuel them. The malignant results of AIDS denial can be seen in those individuals who refuse to be tested, ignore their diagnoses, or reject the treatments that could save their lives. Instead of ignoring these currents, asserts Kalichman, science has a duty to counter them. Among the topics covered: Why AIDS denialism endures, and why science must understand it. Pioneer virus HIV researcher Peter Duesberg’s role in AIDS denialism. Flawed immunological, virological, and pharmacological pseudoscience studies that are central to texts of denialism. The social conservative agenda and the politics of AIDS denial, from the courts to the White House. The impact of HIV misinformation on public health in South Africa. Fighting fiction with reality: anti-denialism and the scientific community. For anyone affected by, interested in, or working with researchers in HIV/AIDS, and public health professionals in general, the insight and vision of Denying AIDS will inspire outrage, discussion, and ultimately action. See http://denyingaids.blogspot.com/ for more information.

To Make the Wounded Whole

To Make the Wounded Whole
Author: Dan Royles
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2020-07-21
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1469659514

In the decades since it was identified in 1981, HIV/AIDS has devastated African American communities. Members of those communities mobilized to fight the epidemic and its consequences from the beginning of the AIDS activist movement. They struggled not only to overcome the stigma and denial surrounding a "white gay disease" in Black America, but also to bring resources to struggling communities that were often dismissed as too "hard to reach." To Make the Wounded Whole offers the first history of African American AIDS activism in all of its depth and breadth. Dan Royles introduces a diverse constellation of activists, including medical professionals, Black gay intellectuals, church pastors, Nation of Islam leaders, recovering drug users, and Black feminists who pursued a wide array of grassroots approaches to slow the epidemic's spread and address its impacts. Through interlinked stories from Philadelphia and Atlanta to South Africa and back again, Royles documents the diverse, creative, and global work of African American activists in the decades-long battle against HIV/AIDS.