Product Description

Paul Farmer has battled AIDS in rural Haiti and deadly strains of drug-resistant tuberculosis in the slums of Peru. A physician-anthropologist with more than fifteen years in the field, Farmer writes from the front lines of the war against these modern plagues and shows why, even more than those of history, they target the poor. This "peculiarly modern inequality" that permeates AIDS, TB, malaria, and typhoid in the modern world, and that feeds emerging (or re-emerging) infectious diseases such as Ebola and cholera, is laid bare in Farmer's harrowing stories of sickness and suffering.
Challenging the accepted methodologies of epidemiology and international health, he points out that most current explanatory strategies, from "cost-effectiveness" to patient "noncompliance," inevitably lead to blaming the victims. In reality, larger forces, global as well as local, determine why some people are sick and others are shielded from risk. Yet this moving account is far from a hopeless inventory of insoluble problems. Farmer writes of what can be done in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds, by physicians determined to treat those in need. Infections and Inequalities weds meticulous scholarship with a passion for solutions--remedies for the plagues of the poor and the social maladies that have sustained them.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #55044 in Books
• Published on: 2001-02-23
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 1.03" h x 5.97" w x 8.95" l, 1.24 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 419 pages

From Library Journal
Farmer is a physician-anthropologist who directs the Program in Infectious Disease and Social Change at Harvard Medical School. He also has clinical practices in Boston and in Haiti, where he has done extensive fieldwork with Haiti's rural poor. Aiming to explain why infectious diseases such as AIDS and tuberculosis target the poor, he fills his new work with harrowing public-health case studies of the pathogenic effects of poverty and other grim social conditions. Farmer provides a well-referenced analysis of everything from cell-mediated immunity to healthcare access issues. The studies outlined show that extreme poverty, filth, and malnutrition are associated with infectious disease and what attitudes and behaviors contribute to the lack of understanding about disease. Arguing that the predictors of patient compliance are fundamentally "economic not cognitive or cultural," he builds a powerful and persuasive argument for a proactive multinational program to defuse the "infectious disease time-bomb." Highly recommended for all medical school library collections and any collection concerned with public-health issues.ARebecca Cress-Ingebo, Wright State Univ Libs., Dayton, OH
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
"The only things that distinguish Farmer's account from a Dostoevskian novel is a meed of hard, effective science and a depressingly familiar story of the powerfully malignant of racism.... It is hard to think of more compelling examples to underpin his arguments. It makes the book and its message accessible to the general reader and forcefully reminds doctors, nurses, scientists, sociologists, economists and aid workers of their unfinished business.... But the main lessons he draws are for us all. We must do all we can to diminish social inequality." - Hugh Pennington, Times Higher Education Supplement "A strangely uplifting read. Infections and Inequalities is a powerful and rigorously argued critique of economic and health care inequality." - Phil Whitaker, The Guardian (UK) "Bolstered by thorough knowledge of the countries in which he practiced, relevant and cogent case histories, and a caring but disciplined attitude, Farmer powerfully argues for substantial changes in epidemiological theory and practice. He raises thought-provoking and necessary questions, and he provides answers that, if often unsettling, are pertinent and capable of being put to use by individuals and governments truly interested in solving, not sidestepping, life-threatening situations." - William Beatty, Booklist"

Ingram
A modern-day plague fighter explains why diseases such as AIDS, TB, malaria, and typhoid target the poor and shows what can be done in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds by physicians determined to treat those in need.