AIDS Sutra: Untold Stories from India


Negar AkhaviSunil Gangopadhyay - 2008
    India is home to almost 3 million HIV cases, but AIDS is still stigmatized and shrouded in denial. Discrimination against HIV-affected individuals in hospitals, schools, and even among families is common, just as discussion about HIV and participation in prevention or treatment programs are not. In this riveting book, sixteen of India's most well-known writers go on the road to uncover the reality of AIDS in India and tell the human stories behind the epidemic.Kiran Desai travels to the coast of Andhra Pradesh, where the sex workers are considered the most desirable; Salman Rushdie meets members of Mumbai's transgender community; William Dalrymple encounters the devadasis, women who have been “married” to a temple goddess and thus are deemed acceptable for transactional sex. Eye-opening, hard-hitting, and moving, AIDS Sutra presents a side of India rarely seen before.

When Plague Strikes: The Black Death, Smallpox, AIDS


James Cross Giblin - 1995
    "A book that would serve well for reports, but it is also a fascinating read."—SLJ. Best Books of 1995 (SLJ)Notable Children's Trade Books in Social Studies 1996 (NCSS/CBC)1995 Young Adult Editors’ Choices (BL)1995 Top of the List Non Fiction (BL)1996 Best Books for Young Adults (ALA)Notable Children’s Books of 1996 (ALA)

Fateful Destiny: An Epic Struggle to Change the Course of American History


Marshall Anders - 2021
    His success and good fortune at such a young age was a remarkable accomplishment for someone from a small Central California farm town. Everything was coming together for Axel until a devastating tragedy beset his hometown. Axel’s perfect life was thrown into turmoil, exposing the moral compromises that he had made to achieve success. In his struggle to put the pieces of his life back together, he discovered his true purpose. From the depths of tragedy, Axel embarked on a quest to revitalize his people and restore the American Nation.

Ishi, Last of His Tribe


Theodora Kroeber - 1964
    Only a few bold Yahi escaped into hiding, among them the man who became known as Ishi, and this is the story of how they survived over the course of 40 years of hiding.    Soon, one by one, the last of the Yahi died--until Ishi was left alone, the sole survivor of a proud people. When Ishi stumbled into a small California mining town, the world learned his true story for the first time. This is the incredible story of the last hunter of the Yahi tribe, and how he brought to "civilization" all the courage, faith and strength of the Yahi Way of Life.

The 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic: The History and Legacy of the World’s Deadliest Influenza Outbreak


Charles River Editors - 2014
    There is every reason to believe that, within a few weeks of its onset, the infection was universally present in the nose and throat of the people, disseminated by mouth spray given off on talking by innumerable carriers and, in addition, by the coughing and sneezing of the sick. Susceptibility was very general, though it varied greatly in degree. Among those who escaped well marked sickness there are few who could not recall having had an occluded or running nose, or a raw feeling in the throat, or a cough, or aches and pains, at some time during the period of the prevalence of the disease, these probably representing the price such persons paid for their immunization." - Dr. Bernard Fantus In many ways, it is hard for modern people living in First World countries to conceive of a pandemic sweeping around the world and killing millions of people, and it is even harder to believe that something as common as influenza could cause such widespread illness and death. Although the flu still takes hundreds of lives each year, most of those lost are very young or old or ill with something else that had already weakened them. In fact, most people contract influenza at least once, and many suffer from the flu several times in their lives and survive it with a minimum amount of medical attention. In 1918, the world was still in the throes of the Great War, the deadliest conflict in human history at that point, but while World War I would be a catastrophic war surpassed only by World War II, an unprecedented influenza outbreak that same year inflicted casualties that would make both wars pale in comparison. An illness, or more likely a collection of illnesses, Spanish influenza quickly spread across the world and may have killed upwards of 100 million people, decimating populations across developed nations and possibly wiping out as much as 5% of the world’s population. If anything, the ongoing war and the censorship maintained by the countries fighting it may have resulted in the actual toll of the outbreak being underestimated based on the way soldiers’ deaths were categorized. World War I may have distracted people about the unprecedented nature of the outbreak, but the most alarming aspect of the outbreak in 1918 was the indiscriminate nature in which the scourge attacked young and old, healthy and unhealthy, and rich and poor alike. In fact, the popular name for the outbreak was a reference to the fact that Spain’s own king was stricken with the disease. While he and President Woodrow Wilson ended up surviving it, former First Lady Rose Cleveland did not. The staggering number of fatalities, and the way in which seemingly anybody could suffer during the outbreak, taught people in the early 20th century that regardless of the tremendous strides made by technology, and no matter how stalemated the war was, nobody was safe from nature itself. Of course, it also demonstrated how much more work could be done to prevent similar occurrences. The 1918 pandemic was neither the first nor the last outbreak of the flu, but it was by far the worst, and it forever changed the face of medicine and public health care in both North America and Europe. The 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic: The History and Legacy of the World’s Deadliest Outbreak chronicles the devastating disease and the damage it wrought across the globe.

Spaces between Us: Queer Settler Colonialism and Indigenous Decolonization


Scott L. Morgensen - 2011
    Native people live in relation to all non-Natives amid the ongoing power relations of settler colonialism, despite never losing inherent claims to sovereignty as indigenous peoples. Explaining how relational distinctions of “Native” and “settler” define the status of being “queer,” Spaces between Us argues that modern queer subjects emerged among Natives and non-Natives by engaging the meaningful difference indigeneity makes within a settler society.Morgensen’s analysis exposes white settler colonialism as a primary condition for the development of modern queer politics in the United States. Bringing together historical and ethnographic cases, he shows how U.S. queer projects became non-Native and normatively white by comparatively examining the historical activism and critical theory of Native queer and Two-Spirit people.Presenting a “biopolitics of settler colonialism”—in which the imagined disappearance of indigeneity and sustained subjugation of all racialized peoples ensures a progressive future for white settlers—Spaces between Us newly demonstrates the interdependence of nation, race, gender, and sexuality and offers opportunities for resistance in the United States.

The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction


Emily Martin - 1987
    Contrasting the views of medical science with those of ordinary women from diverse social and economic backgrounds, anthropologist Emily Martin presents unique fieldwork on American culture and uncovers the metaphors of economy and alienation that pervade women's imaging of themselves and their bodies. A new preface examines some of the latest medical ideas about women's reproductive cycles.

Blood Feud: The Man Who Blew the Whistle on One of the Deadliest Prescription Drugs Ever


Kathleen Sharp - 2011
     THE PLAYERS The Drug: Procrit An anti-anemia drug, this miraculous blood booster was one of the first biotech blockbusters. Developed by Amgen and licensed to a Johnson & Johnson company, the drug was sold by the two companies under the brand names Procrit, Epogen, and Arenesp.The Underdog: Mark Duxbury, Drug Salesman Duxbury was the gung-ho salesman for the new biotech division of J&J, an irrepressible character full of jokes. In the early 1990s, he set out to spread the benefits of Procrit, and became a true believer and top seller. But he and his peers were told to steal business from J&J's partner, Amgen. Then came the marketing studies, the off-invoice rebates, doctor payments, and off-label claims. Duxbury tried to stop some of these ruthless programs, but was fired on trumped-up charges. He tried anything to warn the public: testifying in a secret arbitration, joining a class action effort, and filing a whistleblower suit. But he was thwarted at nearly every turn-until the surprising end.The Best Friend: Dean McClellan, Drug Legend Dean McClellan was Duxbury's friendly rival. He tried to beat his buddy's record and wound up selling $170 million worth of the drug, becoming a legend. When Duxbury got fired, McClellan tried to distance himself. But as news of Procrit's deadly power started to surface, McClellan agreed to hand over thousands of damning documents and help his friend blow the whistle on J&J.The Crusader: Jan Schlichtmann, Esq. Remember Jan Schlichtmann, protagonist of the best-selling book and Oscar nominated movie, A Civil Action? When he learned of Duxbury's mission, he felt the old fire rising in his belly and signed on. Now, he's gambling on yet another long shot, trying to fight on behalf of not just millions of cancer patients, but for every American who overpays for health-care.

The Illness Narratives: Suffering, Healing, And The Human Condition


Arthur Kleinman - 1988
    But humans are not machines. When we are ill, we experience our illness: we become scared, distressed, tired, weary. Our illnesses are not just biological conditions, but human ones. It was Arthur Kleinman, a Harvard psychiatrist and anthropologist, who saw this truth when most of his fellow doctors did not. Based on decades of clinical experience studying and treating chronic illness, The Illness Narratives makes a case for interpreting the illness experience of patients as a core feature of doctoring.Before Being Mortal, there was The Illness Narratives. It remains today a prescient and passionate case for bridging the gap between patient and practitioner.

Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans


Ronald Takaki - 1989
    Through richly detailed vignettes--by turns bitter, funny, and inspiring--he offers a stunning panorama of a neglected part of American history. 16 pages of photographs.

Preventing the Next Pandemic: Vaccine Diplomacy in a Time of Anti-Science


Peter J. Hotez - 2021
    From such twenty-first-century forces, we have seen declines in previous global health gains, with sharp increases in vaccine-preventable and neglected diseases on the Arabian Peninsula, in Venezuela, in parts of Africa, and even on the Gulf Coast of the United States. In Preventing the Next Pandemic, international vaccine scientist and tropical disease and coronavirus expert Peter J. Hotez, MD, PhD, argues that we can--and must--rely on vaccine diplomacy to address this new world order in disease and global health. Detailing his years in the lab developing new vaccines, Hotez also recounts his travels around the world to shape vaccine partnerships with people in countries both rich and poor in an attempt to head off major health problems. Building on the legacy of Dr. Albert Sabin, who developed the oral polio vaccine with Soviet scientists at the height of the Cold War, he explains how he is still working to refresh and redirect vaccine diplomacy toward neglected and newly emerging diseases.Hotez reveals how--during his Obama-era tenure as the US Science Envoy for the Middle East and North Africa, which coincided with both the rise in these geopolitical forces and climate change--he witnessed tropical infectious diseases and established vaccine partnerships that may still combat them up close. He explores why, since 2015, we've seen the decline of global cooperation and cohesion, to the detriment of those programs that are meant to benefit the most vulnerable people in the world. Unfortunately, Hotez asserts, these negative global events kick off a never-ending loop. Problems in a country may lead to disease outbreaks, but those outbreaks can lead to further problems--such as the impact of coronavirus on China's society and economy, which has been felt around the globe. Zeroing in on the sociopolitical and environmental factors that drive our most controversial and pressing global health concerns, Hotez proposes historically proven methods to soothe fraught international relations while preparing us for a safer, healthier future. He hammers home the importance of public engagement to communicate the urgency of embracing science during troubled times.Touching on a range of disease, from leishmaniasis, schistosomiasis, and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) to COVID-19, Preventing the Next Pandemic has always been a timely goal, but it will be even more important in a COVID and post-COVID world.

Reproductive Injustice: Racism, Pregnancy, and Premature Birth


Dána-Ain Davis - 2019
    This cannot be simply explained by economic factors, with poorer women lacking resources or access to care. Even professional, middle-class black women are at a much higher risk of premature birth than low-income white women in the United States. D�na-Ain Davis looks into this phenomenon, placing racial differences in birth outcomes into a historical context, revealing that ideas about reproduction and race today have been influenced by the legacy of ideas which developed during the era of slavery.While poor and low-income black women are often the "mascots" of premature birth outcomes, this book focuses on professional black women, who are just as likely to give birth prematurely. Drawing on an impressive array of interviews with nearly fifty mothers, fathers, neonatologists, nurses, midwives, and reproductive justice advocates, D�na-Ain Davis argues that events leading up to an infant's arrival in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), and the parents' experiences while they are in the NICU, reveal subtle but pernicious forms of racism that confound the perceived class dynamics that are frequently understood to be a central factor of premature birth.The book argues not only that medical racism persists and must be considered when examining adverse outcomes--as well as upsetting experiences for parents--but also that NICUs and life-saving technologies should not be the only strategies for improving the outcomes for black pregnant women and their babies. Davis makes the case for other avenues, such as community-based birthing projects, doulas, and midwives, that support women during pregnancy and labor are just as important and effective in avoiding premature births and mortality.

Invisible Enemies: Stories of Infectious Disease


Jeanette Farrell - 1998
    Updated to include the most recent breakthroughsFirst published in 1998, here are the surprisingly fascinating stories of seven diseases that changed the course of human history - updated to reflect new medical and social developments such as: - the ravages of AIDS in Africa, Asia, and other locations - the bioterror threat posed by smallpox eradication- a primitive yet effective new measure for fighting cholera in India- an important new drug to treat malaria- and moreIllustrated with over fifty reproductions of photographs, newspaper cartoons, public health posters, and the like, Invisible Enemies is an intense and intriguing mix of history, biography, and biology.

Impure Science: AIDS, Activism, and the Politics of Knowledge


Steven Epstein - 1996
    Steven Epstein's astute and readable investigation focuses on the critical question of "how certainty is constructed or deconstructed," leading us through the views of medical researchers, activists, policy makers, and others to discover how knowledge about AIDS emerges out of what he calls "credibility struggles."Epstein shows the extent to which AIDS research has been a social and political phenomenon and how the AIDS movement has transformed biomedical research practices through its capacity to garner credibility by novel strategies. Epstein finds that nonscientist AIDS activists have gained enough of a voice in the scientific world to shape NIH–sponsored research to a remarkable extent. Because of the blurring of roles and responsibilities, the production of biomedical knowledge about AIDS does not, he says, follow the pathways common to science; indeed, AIDS research can only be understood as a field that is unusually broad, public, and contested. He concludes by analyzing recent moves to democratize biomedicine, arguing that although AIDS activists have set the stage for new challenges to scientific authority, all social movements that seek to democratize expertise face unusual difficulties.Avoiding polemics and accusations, Epstein provides a benchmark account of the AIDS epidemic to date, one that will be as useful to activists, policy makers, and general readers as to sociologists, physicians, and scientists.

Life Exposed: Biological Citizens after Chernobyl


Adriana Petryna - 2002
    More than 3.5 million people in Ukraine alone, not to mention many citizens of surrounding countries, are still suffering the effects. Life Exposed is the first book to comprehensively examine the vexed political, scientific, and social circumstances that followed the disaster. Tracing the story from an initial lack of disclosure to post-Soviet democratizing attempts to compensate sufferers, Adriana Petryna uses anthropological tools to take us into a world whose social realities are far more immediate and stark than those described by policymakers and scientists. She asks: What happens to politics when state officials fail to inform their fellow citizens of real threats to life? What are the moral and political consequences of remedies available in the wake of technological disasters?Through extensive research in state institutions, clinics, laboratories, and with affected families and workers of the so-called Zone, Petryna illustrates how the event and its aftermath have not only shaped the course of an independent nation but have made health a negotiated realm of entitlement. She tracks the emergence of a "biological citizenship" in which assaults on health become the coinage through which sufferers stake claims for biomedical resources, social equity, and human rights. Life Exposed provides an anthropological framework for understanding the politics of emergent democracies, the nature of citizenship claims, and everyday forms of survival as they are interwoven with the profound changes that accompanied the collapse of the Soviet Union.