Infections and Inequalities
eBook - PDF

Infections and Inequalities

  1. 424 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Infections and Inequalities

About this book

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 memoir rife with stories about diseases and human suffering. Using field work and new scholarship to challenge the accepted methodologies of epidemiology and international health, Farmer points out that most current explanatory strategies, from "cost-effective treatment" 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 autobiography 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 and medical students determined to treat those in need: whether in their home countries or through medical outreach programs like Doctors without Borders. Infections and Inequalities weds meticulous scholarship in medical anthropology with a passion for solutionsā€”remedies for the plagues of the poor and the social illnesses that have sustained them.

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Yes, you can access Infections and Inequalities by Paul Farmer in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Medicine & Medical Theory, Practice & Reference. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
36
INFECTIONS
AND
INEQUALITIES
confronted
byĀ 
the
enormity
of
the
problems
before
us.
It's
hard
notĀ 
to
give
up.Ā 
AndĀ 
yet
solutions
are
within
our
grasp
ifĀ 
we
have
sufficient
vision
and
will
to
demandĀ 
somethingĀ 
better
forĀ 
the
poor,
whereverĀ 
theyĀ 
live.
In
constructing
an
alternative
vision,
we
will
allĀ 
be
acting
unreasonablyā€”
that
is,
without
the
certainty
of
success.
"Nonetheless,"
notes
Wallerstein,
"weĀ 
are
condemned
to
act."
He
continues:Ā 
"Therefore,
we
must
firstĀ 
be
clear
aboutĀ 
what
is
deficient
inĀ 
our
modernĀ 
world-system,Ā 
aboutĀ 
what
it
is
that
has
made
so
large
a
percentage
ofĀ 
the
world's
populationĀ 
angry,
or
at
leastĀ 
ambivalent
asĀ 
toĀ 
its
socialĀ 
merits.
It
seemsĀ 
quiteĀ 
clear
toĀ 
me
that
the
major
complaint
has
been
the
greatĀ 
inequalities
ofĀ 
the
system,Ā 
which
means
the
absence
of
democracy."
36

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Contents
  3. Preface to the Paperback Edition
  4. Acknowledgments
  5. Introduction
  6. 1. The Vitality of Practice: On Personal Trajectories
  7. 2. Rethinking "Emerging Infectious Diseases"
  8. 3. Invisible Women: Class, Gender, and HIV
  9. 4. The Exotic and the Mundane: Human Immunodeficiency Virus in the Caribbean
  10. 5. Culture, Poverty, and HIV Transmission: The Case of Rural Haiti
  11. 6. Sending Sickness: Sorcery, Politics, and Changing Concepts of AIDS in Rural Haiti
  12. 7. The Consumption of the Poor: Tuberculosis in the Late Twentieth Century
  13. 8. Optimism and Pessimism in Tuberculosis Control: Lessons from Rural Haiti
  14. 9. Immodest Claims of Causality: Social Scientists and the "New" Tuberculosis
  15. 10. The Persistent Plagues: Biological Expressions of Social Inequalities
  16. Notes
  17. References
  18. Index