Download or read book The Race to Discover the AIDS Virus written by Stuart A. Kallen and published by Twenty-First Century Books. This book was released on 2012-08-01 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early 1980s, doctors sounded the alarm. A mysterious new disease—acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, or AIDS—was spreading around the world. While many of the first AIDS patients were gay men, no one seemed to be immune from the deadly blood-borne disease. Researchers set to work to discover what was causing AIDS. They suspected a virus. Two teams of scientists—one in the United States and one in France—worked tirelessly to identify the virus and to develop a blood test to detect it. The news on April 23, 1984, that the U.S. team, led by Robert Gallo at the National Cancer Institute, had isolated the virus was a cause for celebration. But in Paris, France, Luc Montagnier and his team at the Pasteur Institute were furious and frustrated. They had uncovered the AIDS virus, they claimed, and now Gallo was taking credit for their discovery. The battle over who would be recognized for discovering the AIDS virus is a complex and compelling story, filled with mystery, deception, and hope. It involves sophisticated microbiology, the coveted Nobel Prize in Medicine, big egos, and great amounts of money. In this book, author Stuart Kallen chronicles this riveting human tale about a bitter scientific rivalry.
Download or read book The Search for the Virus written by Steve Connor and published by Penguin Group. This book was released on 1989 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The gripping story of the race to discover the AIDS virus and the astonishing progress the medical science community has made in the race for a cure.
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 Virus written by Luc Montagnier and published by W. W. Norton. This book was released on 2008 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The co-discoverer of HIV and one of the world's preeminent virologists relates the Pasteur Institute's leading role in investigating the AIDS virus and the virus's devastating course throughout the world. Photos.
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 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 Tinderbox written by Craig Timberg and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-03-01 with total page 539 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this groundbreaking narrative, longtime Washington Post reporter Craig Timberg and award-winning AIDS researcher Daniel Halperin tell the surprising story of how Western colonial powers unwittingly sparked the AIDS epidemic and then fanned its rise. Drawing on remarkable new science, Tinderbox overturns the conventional wisdom on the origins of this deadly pandemic and the best ways to fight it today. Recent genetic studies have traced the birth of HIV to the forbidding equatorial forests of Cameroon, where chimpanzees carried the virus for millennia without causing a major outbreak in humans. During the Scramble for Africa, colonial companies blazed new routes through the jungle in search of rubber and other riches, sending African porters into remote regions rarely traveled before. It was here that humans first contracted the strain of HIV that would eventually cause 99 percent of AIDS deaths around the world. Western powers were key actors in turning a localized outbreak into a sprawling epidemic as bustling new trade routes, modern colonial cities, and the rise of prostitution sped the virus across Africa. Christian missionaries campaigned to suppress polygamy, but left in its place fractured sexual cultures that proved uncommonly vulnerable to HIV. Equally devastating was the gradual loss of the African ritual of male circumcision, which recent studies have shown offers significant protection against infection. Timberg and Halperin argue that the same Western hubris that marked the colonial era has hamstrung the effort to fight HIV. From the United Nations AIDS program to the Bush administration's historic relief campaign, global health officials have favored well-meaning Western approaches--abstinence campaigns, condom promotion, HIV testing--that have proven ineffective in slowing the epidemic in Africa. Meanwhile they have overlooked homegrown African initiatives aimed squarely at the behaviors spreading the virus. In a riveting narrative that stretches from colonial Leopoldville to 1980s San Francisco to South Africa today, Tinderbox reveals how human hands unleashed this epidemic and can now overcome it, if only we learn the lessons of the past.
Download or read book The Borders of AIDS written by Chair and Associate Professor of Mexican American and Latina/O Studies Karma R Chávez and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As soon as US media and politicians became aware of AIDS in the early 1980s, fingers were pointed not only at the gay community but also at other countries and migrant communities, particularly Haitians, as responsible for spreading the virus. Evangelical leaders, public health officials, and the Reagan administration quickly capitalized on widespread fear of the new disease to call for quarantines, immigration bans, and deportations, scapegoating and blaming HIV-positive migrants--even as the rest of the world regarded the US as the primary exporter of the virus. In The Borders of AIDS, Karma Chávez demonstrates how such calls proliferated and how failure to impose a quarantine for HIV-positive citizens morphed into the successful enactment of a complete ban on the regularization of HIV-positive migrants--which lasted more than twenty years. News reports, congressional records, and AIDS activist archives reveal how queer groups and migrant communities built fragile coalitions to fight against the alienation of themselves and others, asserting their capacity for resistance and resiliency. Building on existing histories of HIV/AIDS, public health, citizenship, and immigration, Chávez establishes how politicians and public health officials treated different communities with HIV/AIDS and highlights the work these communities did to resist alienation.
Download or read book Mapping AIDS written by Lukas Engelmann and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-11-08 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers an innovative study of visual traditions in modern medical history through debates about the causes, impact and spread of AIDS.
Download or read book Virus Hunting written by Robert C. Gallo and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 1993-08-18 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The renowned AIDS researcher Robert Gallo tells his story of scientific breakthrough in a riveting portrait of the people, the politics, and the pace of modern scientific discovery.
Download or read book When Bodies Remember written by Didier Fassin and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2007-03-14 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, France's leading medical anthropologist takes on one of the most tragic stories of the global AIDS crisis—the failure of the ANC government to stem the tide of the AIDS epidemic in South Africa. Didier Fassin traces the deep roots of the AIDS crisis to apartheid and, before that, to the colonial period. One person in ten is infected with HIV in South Africa, and President Thabo Mbeki has initiated a global controversy by funding questionable medical research, casting doubt on the benefits of preventing mother-to-child transmission, and embracing dissidents who challenge the viral theory of AIDS. Fassin contextualizes Mbeki's position by sensitively exploring issues of race and genocide that surround this controversy. Basing his discussion on vivid ethnographical data collected in the townships of Johannesburg, he passionately demonstrates that the unprecedented epidemiological crisis in South Africa is a demographic catastrophe as well as a human tragedy, one that cannot be understood without reference to the social history of the country, in particular to institutionalized racial inequality as the fundamental principle of government during the past century.
Download or read book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks written by Rebecca Skloot and published by Crown. This book was released on 2010-02-02 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “The story of modern medicine and bioethics—and, indeed, race relations—is refracted beautifully, and movingly.”—Entertainment Weekly NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM HBO® STARRING OPRAH WINFREY AND ROSE BYRNE • ONE OF THE “MOST INFLUENTIAL” (CNN), “DEFINING” (LITHUB), AND “BEST” (THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER) BOOKS OF THE DECADE • ONE OF ESSENCE’S 50 MOST IMPACTFUL BLACK BOOKS OF THE PAST 50 YEARS • WINNER OF THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE HEARTLAND PRIZE FOR NONFICTION NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Entertainment Weekly • O: The Oprah Magazine • NPR • Financial Times • New York • Independent (U.K.) • Times (U.K.) • Publishers Weekly • Library Journal • Kirkus Reviews • Booklist • Globe and Mail Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine: The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, which are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions. Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave. Henrietta’s family did not learn of her “immortality” until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family—past and present—is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of. Over the decade it took to uncover this story, Rebecca became enmeshed in the lives of the Lacks family—especially Henrietta’s daughter Deborah. Deborah was consumed with questions: Had scientists cloned her mother? Had they killed her to harvest her cells? And if her mother was so important to medicine, why couldn’t her children afford health insurance? Intimate in feeling, astonishing in scope, and impossible to put down, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks captures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences.
Download or read book Let the Record Show written by Sarah Schulman and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2021-05-18 with total page 736 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2022 Lambda Literary LGBTQ Nonfiction Award and the 2022 NLGJA Excellence in Book Writing Award. Finalist for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbriath Award for Nonfiction, the Gotham Book Prize, and the ALA Stonewall Israel Fishman Nonfiction Award. A 2021 New York Times Book Review Notable Book and a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. Longlisted for the 2021 Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize. One of NPR, New York, and The Guardian's Best Books of 2021, one of Buzzfeed's Best LGBTQ+ Books of 2021, one of Electric Literature's Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2021, one of NBC's 10 Most Notable LGBTQ Books of 2021, and one of Gay Times' Best LGBTQ Books of 2021. "This is not reverent, definitive history. This is a tactician’s bible." --Parul Sehgal, The New York Times Twenty years in the making, Sarah Schulman's Let the Record Show is the most comprehensive political history ever assembled of ACT UP and American AIDS activism In just six years, ACT UP, New York, a broad and unlikely coalition of activists from all races, genders, sexualities, and backgrounds, changed the world. Armed with rancor, desperation, intelligence, and creativity, it took on the AIDS crisis with an indefatigable, ingenious, and multifaceted attack on the corporations, institutions, governments, and individuals who stood in the way of AIDS treatment for all. They stormed the FDA and NIH in Washington, DC, and started needle exchange programs in New York; they took over Grand Central Terminal and fought to change the legal definition of AIDS to include women; they transformed the American insurance industry, weaponized art and advertising to push their agenda, and battled—and beat—The New York Times, the Catholic Church, and the pharmaceutical industry. Their activism, in its complex and intersectional power, transformed the lives of people with AIDS and the bigoted society that had abandoned them. Based on more than two hundred interviews with ACT UP members and rich with lessons for today’s activists, Let the Record Show is a revelatory exploration—and long-overdue reassessment—of the coalition’s inner workings, conflicts, achievements, and ultimate fracture. Schulman, one of the most revered queer writers and thinkers of her generation, explores the how and the why, examining, with her characteristic rigor and bite, how a group of desperate outcasts changed America forever, and in the process created a livable future for generations of people across the world.
Download or read book The Code Breaker written by Walter Isaacson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-03-09 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Best Book of 2021 by Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Time, and The Washington Post The bestselling author of Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs returns with a “compelling” (The Washington Post) account of how Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna and her colleagues launched a revolution that will allow us to cure diseases, fend off viruses, and have healthier babies. When Jennifer Doudna was in sixth grade, she came home one day to find that her dad had left a paperback titled The Double Helix on her bed. She put it aside, thinking it was one of those detective tales she loved. When she read it on a rainy Saturday, she discovered she was right, in a way. As she sped through the pages, she became enthralled by the intense drama behind the competition to discover the code of life. Even though her high school counselor told her girls didn’t become scientists, she decided she would. Driven by a passion to understand how nature works and to turn discoveries into inventions, she would help to make what the book’s author, James Watson, told her was the most important biological advance since his codiscovery of the structure of DNA. She and her collaborators turned a curiosity of nature into an invention that will transform the human race: an easy-to-use tool that can edit DNA. Known as CRISPR, it opened a brave new world of medical miracles and moral questions. The development of CRISPR and the race to create vaccines for coronavirus will hasten our transition to the next great innovation revolution. The past half-century has been a digital age, based on the microchip, computer, and internet. Now we are entering a life-science revolution. Children who study digital coding will be joined by those who study genetic code. Should we use our new evolution-hacking powers to make us less susceptible to viruses? What a wonderful boon that would be! And what about preventing depression? Hmmm…Should we allow parents, if they can afford it, to enhance the height or muscles or IQ of their kids? After helping to discover CRISPR, Doudna became a leader in wrestling with these moral issues and, with her collaborator Emmanuelle Charpentier, won the Nobel Prize in 2020. Her story is an “enthralling detective story” (Oprah Daily) that involves the most profound wonders of nature, from the origins of life to the future of our species.
Download or read book HIV AIDS A Very Short Introduction written by Alan Whiteside OBE and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2008-01-24 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: HIV/AIDS is without doubt the worst epidemic to hit humankind since the Black Death. The first case was identified in 1981; by 2004 it was estimated that about 40 million people were living with the disease, and about 20 million had died. Despite rapid scientific advances there is still no cure and the drugs are expensive and toxic. Because of controversies and taboos surrounding safe drug usage and prostitution, the numbers of people infected continues to rise. However, it is in the developing world and especially parts of Africa that the real catastrophe is unfolding. In some of the worst affected countries life expectancy has plummeted to below 35 years, which has led to a serious decline in economic growth, a sharp rise in orphaning, and the imminent collapse of health care systems. The news is not all bleak though. There have been unprecedented breakthroughs in understanding diseases and developing drugs. Because the disease is so closely linked to sexual activity and drug use, the need to understand and change behaviour has caused us to reassess what it means to be human and how we should operate in the globalising world. This Very Short Introduction provides an introduction to the disease, tackling the science, the international and local politics, the fascinating demographics, and the devastating consequences of the disease, and explores how we have — and must — respond. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Download or read book Viruses written by Michael G. Cordingley and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2017-06-19 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While viruses—the world’s most abundant biological entities—are not technically alive, they invade, replicate, and evolve within living cells. Michael Cordingley goes beyond our familiarity with infections to show how viruses spur evolutionary change in their hosts and shape global ecosystems, from ocean photosynthesis to drug-resistant bacteria.
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.
