The Invisible Cure: Africa, The West, And The Fight Against AIDS - Hardcover

Epstein, Helen

4.1

991 ratings by Goodreads

9780374281526: The Invisible Cure: Africa, The West, And The Fight Against AIDS

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374281521 ISBN 13: 9780374281526

Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2007

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In 1993, Helen Epstein, a scientist working with a biotechnology company searching for an AIDS vaccine, moved to Uganda, where she witnessed firsthand the suffering caused by the epidemic. Now, in her unsparing and illuminating account of this global disease, she describes how international health experts, governments, and ordinary Africans have struggled to understand the rapid and devastating spread of the disease in Africa, and traces the changes wrought by new medical developments and emerging political realities. It is an account of scientific discovery and intrigue with implications far beyond the fight against one tragic disease. The AIDS epidemic is partly a consequence of the rapid transition of African societies from an agrarian past to an impoverished present. Millions of African people have yet to find a place in an increasingly globalized world, and their poverty and social dislocation have generated an earthquake in gender relations that deeply affects the spread of HIV. But Epstein argues that there are solutions to this crisis, and some of the most effective ones may be simpler than many people assume. Written with conviction, knowledge, and insight, Why Don’t They Listen? will change how we think about the worst health crisis of the past century, and our strategies for improving global public health.

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Review:

Her subject – it soon becomes clear – is not just the nature of one virus, but of humankind (Philip Gourevitch)

Like travelling into remote and hard-to-comprehend territory with an unblinking and sure-footed guide (The New York Times)

A serious attempt to understand the epidemiology of thoughtfulness, as well as that of HIV. Epstein wants to know why clarity and honesty, as well as human lives, so often become casualties of AIDS (New Statesman)

Some of the scenes that the author describes would be hilarious were they satirical rather than real. An important contribution to the literature of AIDS (Spectator)

Practical, concrete and full of hard information ... Epstein's scientific background, lucidity of expression and habit of wide-ranging inquiry lend authority and accessibility (Hilary Mantel London Review of Books)

About the Author:

Helen Epstein writes frequently on public health for various publications, including The New York Review of Books and The New York Times Magazine. She is currently a visiting research scholar at the Center for Health and Wellbeing at Princeton University.

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