Overview

With more than one million of its citizens currently affected and half a million already dead, the US ranks in the top 10 most severe AIDS epidemics in the world (a ranking which includes all African countries). As one of the world's largest economies, such a large potential loss of life could have an impact on the economy of every country in the world. It is imperative that the US government acts now to reduce the danger of HIV/AIDS in the country. Hunter exposes the ways in which the US shamefully resembles a developing country, and many fronts on which the government has failed to control the spread of the disease. She questions, why do these conditions exist and what must the US do to change them?

Full Product Details

9781403971999

Table of Contents

Reviews

Susan Hunter is inspiring. This book will open your eyes and challenge what you think you know about AIDS in America. This is our country, and we can not afford to look away -- we need to act and empower ourselves with the information that is often hidden from our view. --Alicia Keys AIDS in America is a necessary step in a situation we cannot afford to ignore. --Donald Trump Hunter's ability to render such a large body of information coherent is impressive... -- Publisher's Weekly This book, and the stories of the people in it, is a call to arms. We all need to be armed with this information so we can tell our friends and families and neighbors and shock them into action. --Alan Cumming, from the preface<br> Susan Hunter's breakthrough third book, AIDS in America is a wake up call about the raging epidemic in our midst. It should compel us all to break the silence on the crisis in American values that is putting my children and yours at a great and worsening risk from HIV/AIDS---right here in the homeland. --Paul Zeitz, Executive Director, Global AIDS Alliance<br>Praise for Black Death: <br> This book opens many new perspectives on what has become the largest epidemic in human history. More importantly, it gives us insight into the human tragedy and triumph that is the daily bread of people and communities in the areas most affected by AIDS throughout the world --Peter Piot, Executive Director, UNAIDS <br>

'This book, and the stories of the people in it, is a call to arms. We all need to be armed with this information so we can tell our friends and families and neighbors and shock them into action.' - Alan Cumming, from the preface 'Susan Hunter's breakthrough third book, AIDS in America is a wake up call about the raging epidemic in our midst. It should compel us all to break the silence on the crisis in American values that is putting my children and yours at a great and worsening risk from HIV/AIDS - right here in the homeland.' - Paul Zeitz, Executive Director, Global AIDS Alliance 'Susan Hunter is inspiring. This book will open your eyes and challenge what you think you know about AIDS in America. This is our country, and we cannot afford to look away - we need to act and empower ourselves with the information that is often hidden from our view.' - Alicia Keys 'As a businessman, I have an intimate knowledge of the dynamics of risk and opportunity. AIDS in America presents us with the opportunity to intervene and stop the growth of this terrible epidemic, saving millions of people from suffering and harm.' - Donald Trump

A disturbing picture of the status of AIDS in the United States and an angry claim that the country has failed utterly to confront the problem. Hunter, a medical anthropologist who has previously written on the specter of AIDS in Africa and Asia, asserts not only that the United States has the most severe HIV epidemic of any developed country but that AIDS will soon become the worst epidemic this country will ever know. Most Americans, she says, are woefully ignorant about AIDS, still thinking of it as something that affects homosexuals and drug users, but not themselves or the people they know. To counteract this notion, she focuses on the story of Paige Swanberg, a white, middle-class woman from Montana who learned that she was HIV-positive when she tried to join the Navy and has since become an AIDS counselor. Hunter also interviewed a number of other activists and people touched by AIDS, and her text is heavily larded with their comments, some pertinent but many not. She is particularly scornful of the Christian Right, deploring its abstinence-only approach to sex education and its disinformation campaign about condoms, and she has harsh words for the Bush administration for catering to their demands. The government, she claims, has failed to protect citizens through acts of commission and omission: e.g., its war on drugs, with a mass-incarceration approach that promotes the spread of AIDS, as crowded prisons becoming ideal breeding grounds for drug-resistant superstrains of HIV; its cuts in funding for treatment programs; its attacks on women's reproductive rights; its withdrawal of support for housing and food for HIV-positive Americans. Hunter is clearly outraged by what she sees, and her language reflects her wrath: a government that doesn't seem to give a damn ; right-wing hatemongers and vote-buying liberals ; and a drug industry with a stranglehold on government. The author's vituperation may alienate some, and her voluminous statistics may turn off others, but her demand that attention be paid comes through loud and clear. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

SUSAN HUNTER is an Independent Consultant who has worked at the highest policy level with world health organizations (UNAIDS, UNICEF, USAID) in Africa over the last 20 years. She continues to travel frequently in Africa and South East Asia as part of her work on the pandemic. She is the author of Who Cares?, also published by Palgrave Macmillan.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available