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The Invisible Cure: Why We Are Losing the Fight Against AIDS in Africa |  | Author: Helen Epstein
Publisher: Picador
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
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Seller: sueterrybooks
Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 33778
Media: Paperback
Pages: 324
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.3 x 1.2
ISBN: 0312427727
Dewey Decimal Number: 362.1969792
EAN: 9780312427726
ASIN: 0312427727
Publication Date: May 27, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
A New York Times Notable Book of 2007 The Invisible Cure is an account of Africa's AIDS epidemic from the inside--a revelatory dispatch from the intersection of village life, government intervention, and international aid. Helen Epstein left her job in the US in 1993 to move to Uganda, where she began work on a test vaccine for HIV. Once there, she met patients, doctors, politicians, and aid workers, and began exploring the problem of AIDS in Africa through the lenses of medicine, politics, economics, and sociology. Amid the catastrophic failure to reverse the epidemic, she discovered a village-based solution that could prove more effective than any network of government intervention and international aid, an intuitive response that calls into question many of the fundamental assumptions about the AIDS in Africa. Written with conviction, knowledge, and insight, The Invisible Cure will change how we think about the worst health crisis of the past century--and indeed about every issue of global public health.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 7
 An important contribution to addressing this ongoing tragedy July 19, 2007
John Bergren (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa)
22 out of 22 found this review helpful
I'm an American doctor working in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. I can attest to the substance of much of the material presented in this book and the importance of its message, specifically that norms of sexual behavior in this culture need to be discussed and changed for prevention efforts to begin to be effective. As the author aptly discusses, numerous aid organizations, flush with good intentions and funds, seem to operate on the periphery of this central issue. One of the most disturbing lessons of my time in the midst of this horrible tragedy is the realization that the stigma attached to this disease in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa remains so severe that many people prefer to die than to find out that they have AIDS, a point the author seems to get across through with many informative anecdotes. The fundamental thesis is that we need to begin to engage the leaders within these societies at a fundamental cultural level regarding relationships and sexual behavior. No small task. I would highly recommend this book as the first read for someone trying to understand why AIDS is so unbelievably prevalent in Sub-Saharan Africa. As of today, for every person we enroll in antiretroviral treatment in rural KwaZulu-Natal, five will be newly infected. It's very depressing to see so many people dying from a preventable disease--1,000 people die of it every day in South Africa alone.
A CLASSIC WORK May 15, 2007
Big Wind (Western Massachusetts)
15 out of 17 found this review helpful
The most important book published on AIDS in a long time, and one of the most important books of the year. If you liked Rachel Carson's Silent Spring or And The Band Played On, you will love this book. It is readable, impassioned and brilliant, and despite its savage denunciation of the failures of the West to deal with the AIDS crisis, it is an essentially optimistic work. Publishers Weekly in a starred review said it will save lives, and that is not hyperbole. I urge anyone who is interested in the greatest medical crisis of our time; anyone who is interested in Africa; anyone who is outraged by the failure of the UN, the WHO and the Bush administration to deal with this tragedy, to buy this book and give it to your friends. It is the kind of book that will change peoples' minds and will move continents. It will be read for years to come...
A vital and important book July 9, 2007
Ben Sonnenberg (New York, NY USA)
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
How rare it is to come upon an author like Helen Epstein. She not only knows her subject, with its numberless scientific and political implications; she also writes about it in a way that makes a common reader want to know more and more. She educates, she invigorates, she breaks our hearts. This is a vital and important book. -- Ben Sonnenberg, New York City
Clear Thinking About Slowing the AIDS Epidemic in Africa July 21, 2007
Professor Donald Mitchell (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 96,000 Helpful Votes Globally)
6 out of 9 found this review helpful
We have been overwhelmed by bad information about what causes AIDS to be so much more prevalent in the eastern and southern parts of Africa than elsewhere in the world. Even though more money than ever is being directed to stopping this epidemic, that money is hardly ever being spent for a helpful purpose. Helen Epstein carefully describes what she learned on site in Africa about what the primary problems really are and how best to deal with those problems . . . rather than the problems that politicians and NGOs want to address. Millions of lives are at stake: Please read what Ms. Epstein has to say and share what you learn with others.
So what's different about people in eastern and southern Africa that makes AIDS so much larger a risk there?
1. Men are much less likely to be circumcised. Circumcion cuts infection risk dramatically.
2. Although the people in that part of the world have no more (and often fewer) sexual partners over a life time, these people are more likely to be active with more than one sexual partner at a time. That habit causes those who become infected to spread the disease much faster and further.
What can be done?
Uganda (once the area most affected by AIDS) provides the answer: Make sure everyone knows that AIDS risk is there for everyone who is a drug user and shares needles, or has sex with anyone who has more than one partner without using a condom. The public in general, and politicians as well, like to paint AIDS as being a problem limited to homosexuals, sex workers, and promiscuous people. But in places like eastern and southern Africa, those who monogamous can be almost equally at risk. In fact, Uganda doesn't use these good policies any more ("No Grazing") because fighting AIDS has gone from being a local activity to being a national policy.
Ms. Epstein reports in detail how local initiatives to get the correct information out can make a big difference (saving an estimated one million lives in Uganda). National and international initiatives seem to waste almost all of the money (as she points out in several examples).
By not paying attention to what works and what doesn't, country leaders and international NGO leaders run the risk of making everyone feel like everything is being done . . . when the wrong things are being done. As a result, millions will die.
It's a sad story of how everyone wants to help, but they see the problem as being like the nail in the eye of a carpenter. You hit the nail to solve the problem. Drug companies want to develop vaccines. Condom makers want to sell condoms. Churches want to preach sexual abstinence. Politicians want to ignore the frequency of rape, casual sex, and cheating among married people. Individuals want to believe they are safe because they know the people they have sex with. But most of these nails don't make much difference.
Let's start hitting the right nail!
Very Interesting, Must-Read Book July 18, 2009
Anastasia Prozorova (Montreal, Canada)
One of those rare books that talk to all, regular readers, scientists, activists, humanitarian workers, doctors, nurses, families... The author presents a clear and firm position on the question of AIDS in a very engaging manner. It was a pleasure to read the book that shed light on why the fight against AIDS is far from being won.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 7
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