Download or read book The AIDS Generation written by Perry N. Halkitis and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-15 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For young gay men who came of age in the United States in the 1980s, the HIV/AIDS epidemic was a formative experience in fear, hardship, and loss. Those who were diagnosed before 1996 suffered an exceptionally high rate of mortality, and the survivors -- both the infected individuals and those close to them -- today constitute a "bravest generation" in American history. The AIDS Generation: Stories of Survival and Resilience examines the strategies for survival and coping employed by these HIV-positive gay men, who together constitute the first generation of long-term survivors of the disease. Through interviews conducted by the author, it narrates the stories of gay men who have survived since the early days of the epidemic; documents and delineates the strategies and behaviors enacted by men of this generation to survive it; and examines the extent to which these approaches to survival inform and are informed by the broad body of literature on resilience and health. The stories and strategies detailed here, all used to combat the profound physical, emotional, and social challenges faced by those in the crosshairs of the AIDS epidemic, provide a gateway for understanding how individuals cope with chronic and life-threatening diseases. Halkitis takes readers on a journey of first-hand data collection (the interviews themselves), the popular culture representations of these phenomena, and his own experiences as one of the men of the AIDS generation. This riveting account will be of interest to health practitioners and historians throughout the clinical and social sciences -- or to anyone with an interest in this important chapter in social history. Cover photo courtesy of Fire Island Pines Historical Preservation Society.

Download or read book Dancing on the Moon written by Jameson Currier and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the title story from Dancing on the Moon a young man, thinking of all his friends who have died from AIDS and those who are ill, says: "No one out there has a clue as to what our lives are like. All this is as strange to them as dancing on the moon." The speaker marveling at the gulf that separates those affected by AIDS from a world that thinks itself immune is just one of the memorable characters in this unprecedented book of twelve virtuoso stories about the impact of AIDS, particularly as it has reverberated through the lives of gay men. With profound literary courage, Jameson Currier documents what those lives are like. With sure-handed narrative skill, Chekhovian compassion, and remarkable grace, Currier writes not only about those who are living with AIDS and those who have died from it but also about the friends, families, and lovers who nurse and care for the sick and remember them afterward. His characters range from rebellious Southern teenagers to an elderly Jewish woman whose grandson has died, to an infant with AIDS adopted by an AIDS widower and his new lover. "What They Carried" concerns the things friends bring and give to another friend over the course of his struggle with the disease. "Reunions" finds two men sharing a bizarre cab ride in the last days of their illnesses. In "The Absolute Worst" a woman reunites two former lovers from her college years. A woman submerges herself in the new life of her dead brother's lover in order to come to terms with her own losses in "Weekends." In "Ghosts" a man seeks out a dying acquaintance in an unconscious attempt to justify his own lover's suicide. In all the stories men and women search for order and reason during a health crisis that knows no rationale. With both humor and pathos, tragedy and hope, Jameson Currier writes about life as it is lived today. Without being maudlin, sentimental, or hysterical, he shows that even the horror of AIDS can be meaningful, poignant, and instructive to the human condition. No fiction could be more pertinent to these parlous times, for Dancing on the Moon is truth-telling at its most important. It speaks eloquently to its author's abundant gifts even as it bears witness to an era in our collective history. Jameson Currier's collection may be shaped by the devastation of a virus so unknown and feared and misunderstood that it is as strange to many people as "dancing on the moon," yet no one who reads it will be left untouched.

Download or read book 28 written by Stephanie Nolen and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2010-10-22 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of our most widely read, award-winning journalists – comes the powerful, unputdownable story of the very human cost of a global pandemic of staggering scope and scale. It is essential reading for our times. In 28, Stephanie Nolen, the Globe and Mail’s Africa Bureau Chief, puts a human face to the crisis created by HIV-AIDS in Africa. She has achieved, in this amazing book, something extraordinary: she writes with a power, understanding and simplicity that makes us listen, makes us understand and care. Through riveting anecdotal stories – one for each of the million people living with HIV-AIDS in Africa – Nolen explores the effects of an epidemic that well exceeds the Black Plague in magnitude. It is a calamity that is unfolding just a 747-flight away, and one that will take the lives of these 28 million without the help of massive, immediate intervention on an unprecedented scale. 28 is a timely, transformative, thoroughly accessible book that shows us definitively why we continue to ignore the growth of HIV-AIDS in Africa only at our peril and at an intolerable moral cost. 28’s stories are much more than a record of the suffering and loss in 28 emblematic lives. Here we meet women and men fighting vigorously on the frontlines of disease: Tigist Haile Michael, a smart, shy 14-year-old Ethiopian orphan fending for herself and her baby brother on the slum streets of Addis Ababa; Alice Kadzanja, an HIV-positive nurse in Malawi, where one in six adults has the virus, and where the average adult’s life expectancy is 36; and Zackie Achmat, the hero of South Africa’s politically fragmented battle against HIV-AIDS. 28 also tells us how the virus works, spreads and, ultimately, kills. It explains the connection of HIV-AIDS to conflict, famine and the collapse of states; shows us how easily treatment works for those lucky enough to get it and details the struggles of those who fight to stay alive with little support. It makes vivid the strong, desperate people doing all they can, and maintaining courage, dignity and hope against insurmountable odds. It is – in its humanity, beauty and sorrow – a call to action for all who read it.

Download or read book Hidden Mercy written by Michael J. O'Loughlin and published by Broadleaf Books . This book was released on 2021-11-30 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 1980s and 1990s, the height of the AIDS crisis in the United States, was decades ago now, and many of the stories from this time remain hidden: A Catholic nun from a small Midwestern town packs up her life to move to New York City, where she throws herself into a community under assault from HIV and AIDS. A young priest sees himself in the many gay men dying from AIDS and grapples with how best to respond, eventually coming out as gay and putting his own career on the line. A gay Catholic with HIV loses his partner to AIDS and then flees the church, focusing his energy on his own health rather than fight an institution seemingly rejecting him. Set against the backdrop of the HIV and AIDS epidemic of the late twentieth century and the Catholic Church's crackdown on gay and lesbian activists, journalist Michael O'Loughlin searches out the untold stories of those who didn't look away, who at great personal cost chose compassion--even as he seeks insight for LGBTQ people of faith struggling to find a home in religious communities today. This is one journalist's--gay and Catholic himself--compelling picture of those quiet heroes who responded to human suffering when so much of society--and so much of the church--told them to look away. These pure acts of compassion and mercy offer us hope and inspiration as we continue to confront existential questions about what it means to be Americans, Christians, and human beings responding to those most in need.

Download or read book The River written by Edward Hooper and published by Back Bay. This book was released on 2000 with total page 1118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A British medical journalist offers a meticulously researched look at HIV and its potential source, discussing the history of this lethal epidemic, analyzing a number of theories concerning its origins, and investigating current scientific inquiries into HIV, AIDS, and the search for a cure. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.

Download or read book My Rose written by Geneva E. Bell and published by Pilgrim Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A deeply moving narrative and a wrenching story of a mother and her gay son's struggle with AIDS. Honestly confronting the pain of a family, this text ultimately shows a faith community transformed by God's love. Foreword by Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.

Download or read book And The Band Played on written by Randy Shilts and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2000-04-09 with total page 666 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An investigative account of the medical, sexual, and scientific questions surrounding the spread of AIDS across the country.

Download or read book To End a Plague written by Emily Bass and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2021-07-06 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Randy Shilts and Laurie Garrett told the story of the HIV/AIDS epidemic through the late 1980s and the early 1990s, respectively. Now journalist-historian-activist Emily Bass tells the story of US engagement in HIV/AIDS control in sub-Saharan Africa. There is far to go on the path, but Bass tells us how far we’ve come.” —Sten H. Vermund, professor and dean, Yale School of Public Health With his 2003 announcement of a program known as PEPFAR, George W. Bush launched an astonishingly successful American war against a global pandemic. PEPFAR played a key role in slashing HIV cases and AIDS deaths in sub-Saharan Africa, leading to the brink of epidemic control. Resilient in the face of flatlined funding and political headwinds, PEPFAR is America’s singular example of how to fight long-term plague—and win. To End a Plague is not merely the definitive history of this extraordinary program; it traces the lives of the activists who first impelled President Bush to take action, and later sought to prevent AIDS deaths at the whims of American politics. Moving from raucous street protests to the marbled halls of Washington and the clinics and homes where Ugandan people living with HIV fight to survive, it reveals an America that was once capable of real and meaningful change—and illuminates imperatives for future pandemic wars. Exhaustively researched and vividly written, this is the true story of an American moonshot.

Download or read book Nurses On The Inside Stories Of The HIV AIDS Epidemic In NYC written by Ellen Matzer and published by Tree District Books. This book was released on 2019-07-11 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nurses On The Inside details the stories of two nurses who witnessed the frontline of the early years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Although some of the names, locations, and events have been changed or dramatized, it is important to remember this: this is what really happened to them, and it happened not only to them in New York, but in San Francisco, LA, Miami, and dozens of other cities in the US. Ellen and Valery were not alone, there were hundreds of nurses who went through this experience. They want to tell this story to give a voice to a generation lost, allowing the world to remember. This history cannot be repeated.

Download or read book Taking Turns written by MK Czerwiec and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fear of contagion, isolated patients, a surge of overwhelming and unpreventable deaths, and the frontline healthcare workers who shouldered the responsibility of seeing us through a deadly epidemic: as we continue to confront the global pandemic caused by COVID-19, Taking Turns reminds us that we’ve been through this before. Only a few decades ago, the world faced another terrifying and deadly health crisis: HIV/AIDS. Nurse MK Czerwiec began working at the Illinois Masonic Medical Center’s HIV/AIDS Care Unit 371 in the 1990s—a pivotal time in the history of AIDS. Deaths from the disease in the United States peaked in 1995 and then dropped drastically in the following years, with the release of effective drug treatments. In this graphic memoir, Czerwiec provides an insider’s view of the lives of healthcare workers, patients, and loved ones from Unit 371. With humor, insight, and emotion, MK shows how the patients and staff cared for one another, how the sick faced their deaths, and how the survivors looked for hope in what seemed, at times, like a hopeless situation. Drawn in a restrained, inviting style, Taking Turns is an open, honest look at suffering, grief, and resilience among a community of medical professionals and patients at the heart of the AIDS epidemic.

Download or read book Against the Odds written by Peter S. Arno and published by HarperCollins Publishers. This book was released on 1993 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Against the Odds is the most important book yet written about the quest for a cure and treatments for AIDS. Authors Arno and Feiden cut through the complex issues to tell the tragic, inspiring story behind the scenes of the AIDS crisis - how a diverse group of extraordinary people banded together to fight bureaucracy and greed to save lives. AIDS has been called the greatest public health menace of our time, and yet political and bottom-line agendas, couples with fear, racism, and homophobia, have made the battle against it a painful uphill struggle. Against the Odds is the tale of government officials, agencies, and pharmaceutical companies that have delayed the development of life-saving and life-prolonging drugs, and of others who have bent and changed the rules. Most of all, it is the story of the activist and patient communities that have now altered the course of government policy toward AIDS and other diseases with their creative, and often heroic, tactics"--Unedited summary from book.

Download or read book My Own Country written by Abraham Verghese and published by Vintage. This book was released on 1995-04-25 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of The Covenant of Water and New York Times bestseller Cutting for Stone: a story of medicine in the American heartland, and confronting one's deepest prejudices and fears. “Remarkable.... An account of the [AIDS] plague years in America. Beautifully written…by a doctor who was changed and shaped by his patients.” —The New York Times Book Review Nestled in the Smoky Mountains of eastern Tennessee, the town of Johnson City had always seemed exempt from the anxieties of modern American life. But when the local hospital treated its first AIDS patient, a crisis that had once seemed an “urban problem” had arrived in the town to stay. Working in Johnson City was Abraham Verghese, a young Indian doctor specializing in infectious diseases. Dr. Verghese became by necessity the local AIDS expert, soon besieged by a shocking number of male and female patients whose stories came to occupy his mind, and even take over his life. Verghese brought a singular perspective to Johnson City: as a doctor unique in his abilities; as an outsider who could talk to people suspicious of local practitioners; above all, as a writer of grace and compassion who saw that what was happening in this conservative community was both a medical and a spiritual emergency.

Download or read book Our Story written by Robert Hamilton (Writer) and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Origins of AIDS written by Jacques Pépin and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-21 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An updated edition of Jacques Pépin's acclaimed account of the events that transformed a chimpanzee virus into a global pandemic.

Download or read book The Secret Epidemic written by Jacob Levenson and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2005-02-08 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Half the people in the United States who are diagnosed with HIV are now African American. Through the eyes of those on the front lines of the crisis, journalist Jacob Levenson tells a story of race and public health that spans fifty years and reveals how AIDS has become one of the leading killers of young black men and women. Medical researcher Mindy Fullilove investigates the epidemic’s links to crack cocaine, the Bronx fires, and national health policy. Desiree Rushing must reconcile her crack addiction and HIV infection with the fate of her city, family, and the black church. David deShazo, a white AIDS worker in Alabama, fights to prevent the American South from becoming the epidemic’s new epicenter. And Mario Cooper, a gay, infected son of the black elite confronts the boundaries of American race politics in Washington, D.C. Seamlessly interweaving personal stories with national policy, Levenson indelibly captures this devastating epidemic and illuminates its potential to expand our understanding of race in America.

Download or read book Preaching with AIDS written by Carolyn Jenkins-Pineda and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic written by Richard A. McKay and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-11-22 with total page 447 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now an award-winning documentary feature film The search for a “patient zero”—popularly understood to be the first person infected in an epidemic—has been key to media coverage of major infectious disease outbreaks for more than three decades. Yet the term itself did not exist before the emergence of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. How did this idea so swiftly come to exert such a strong grip on the scientific, media, and popular consciousness? In Patient Zero, Richard A. McKay interprets a wealth of archival sources and interviews to demonstrate how this seemingly new concept drew upon centuries-old ideas—and fears—about contagion and social disorder. McKay presents a carefully documented and sensitively written account of the life of Gaétan Dugas, a gay man whose skin cancer diagnosis in 1980 took on very different meanings as the HIV/AIDS epidemic developed—and who received widespread posthumous infamy when he was incorrectly identified as patient zero of the North American outbreak. McKay shows how investigators from the US Centers for Disease Control inadvertently created the term amid their early research into the emerging health crisis; how an ambitious journalist dramatically amplified the idea in his determination to reframe national debates about AIDS; and how many individuals grappled with the notion of patient zero—adopting, challenging and redirecting its powerful meanings—as they tried to make sense of and respond to the first fifteen years of an unfolding epidemic. With important insights for our interconnected age, Patient Zero untangles the complex process by which individuals and groups create meaning and allocate blame when faced with new disease threats. What McKay gives us here is myth-smashing revisionist history at its best.