AIDS in America - Hardcover

Susan Hunter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1403971994 ISBN 13: 9781403971999

Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 2006

Synopsis

With more than one million people currently infected and half a million already dead, the U.S. ranks among the top ten most severe AIDS epidemics in the world. Americans should know more about the current state of the epidemic so they can protect themselves and demand that the government act responsibly to reduce the danger of HIV in this country. Hunter exposes the ways in which the U.S. shamefully resembles a developing country, and the many fronts on which the government has failed to control the spread of the disease. In this startling book, she also shows what we must do to change the future of AIDS.

About this title

About the Author

Susan Hunter is independent consultant to world health organizations (UNAIDS, UNICEF, USAID). She is the author of Black Death (Palgrave Macmillan 2003), selected by the London Times online as one of the top five books on AIDS ever written. She lives in upstate New York.

Alan Cumming won the Tony Award and the Drama Desk Award for his role as the emcee in the Broadway revival of Cabaret. He has appeared in many films including Emma, The Anniversary Party (which he also co-wrote and co-directed), Son of the Mask, Spy Kids, X2, The Tempest, and GoldenEye. He also provided voice work for The Smurfs movie. On television, Alan has appeared in The Good Wife, Riverworld, Web Therapy, and The L Word. His many audiobook credits include reading Anil's Ghost, The Conch Bearer, Specimen Days, and Vittorio, The Vampire.

Reviews

Hunter writes that more than one million Americans are infected with HIV, and the infection rate surged between 2002 and 2003. A consultant to UNICEF and other health organizations, Hunter makes two main points in this wide-ranging polemic. The first is that AIDS is no longer confined to marginalized populations; the second is that government policies and the influence of the Christian right are helping to ensure its unnecessarily rapid spread. The book centers on Paige Swanberg, a young single mother from Billings, Mont., who was infected after a brief liaison with a newcomer to town. By the time Hunter encounters her, Swanberg is an AIDS counselor and activist who has learned that her paternal grandfather also died of the disease. "AIDS in the United States is a family disease," Hunter writes, and she uses Swanberg's family—her mother, biological father, adoptive father and two sisters—to illustrate how the rise in the number of single-parent families, the advent of government-sanctioned abstinence-only sex education and the monopolistic policies of American drug companies have combined to create a recipe for a coming public health disaster. Hunter's ability to render such a large body of information coherent is impressive. At times, she undercuts the wealth of information with too much polemic and unsubstantiated and alarmist statements. 16 pages of b&w illus. (Mar. 28)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Hunter brings the continuing AIDS epidemic into the living room by featuring a young woman from Billings, Montana. Paige Swanberg doesn't fit the profile many may conjure when they think about people with AIDS (PWAs), and that is precisely why Hunter interviewed her and the handful of others contacted for this book. The point Hunter wishes to make is that AIDS is swiftly becoming more common and potentially more deadly, especially given projections of the development of drug-resistant mutations, than most people think. She blames the Religious Right and U.S. government policies that conceal or downplay the peril, diminish women's rights, and even promote AIDS proliferation through an out-of-control prison system. Hunter gets top marks for passion and shocks per page but scores rather lower for documentation of the staggering statistics she cites (e.g., 14,000 new PWAs every day and estimates of 130 to 240 million by 2010). Still, eye-opening reading. Donna Chavez
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1403971994
• ISBN 13: 9781403971999
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256