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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (May 16, 2012)
Books HIV/AIDS: The Facts and The Fiction By Kam Williams Special To The Skanner News “U nfortunately, a series of interlocking mis- conceptions have dis- torted scientific and public perceptions of HIV and the AIDS epidemic… Given a sober review, the scientific literature is clear: (1) New York City is the epicenter of the AIDS epidemic; (2) the theory that HIV came from monkeys is a fallacy; and (3) the African AIDS epidemic-as-holocaust never man- ifested. The goal of this work is to reconfigure the conceptual para- digm of the HIV/AIDS epidemic such that resource allocations and healthcare interventions work to serve the benefit, and not the detri- ment, of the populations at need.” — Excerpted from the Preface (pg. xiii) A few years ago, I saw a docu- mentary about AIDS which began by asking which of a number of places had the highest HIV infec- tion rate. I was shocked to learn that the correct answer to the ques- tion was the only American city on AIDS originally started in Africa where it had infected millions of victims for decades prior to cross- ing the Atlantic and arriving on these shores around 1980. That piece of propaganda simply isn’t true, according to Chris Jennings, a seminal work which does an excellent job of dispelling myths in the hope of educating the populace and encouraging politicians and the medical community to reorder their priorities. the list, Washington, D.C., since all the other choices were either in Africa or the Caribbean. I had unwittingly fallen prey to the conventional wisdom which has led most people to believe that Page 8 The Portland Skanner May 16, 2012 a Harvard-educated medical writer who has staked his career in the field of HIV research. He has devoted much of the last 20 years in quest of the truth about the AIDS epidemic. The upshot of that herculean effort is “HIV/AIDS: The Facts and The Fiction,” a seminal work which does an excellent job of dispelling myths in the hope of educating the populace and encouraging politi- cians and the medical community to reorder their priorities. For example, the author argues that because of the widespread belief that Africa is the epicenter of AIDS, a disproportionate amount of resources are wasted on circumcisions and/or anti- retroviral drugs on patients there who aren’t apt to be infected. Meanwhile, the readily-winnable fights against more lethal diseases on the continent, like pneumonia and diarrhea, go underfunded. Such surprising revelations abound in Jennings’ informative reference text. Though academic in nature, his encyclopedic treatise nevertheless arrives augmented by a helpful glossary which makes it all accessible to the layman by explaining the meanings of dozens of such obscure terms as “cytotox- ic,” ”immunoglobulin” and “neu- rotropic.” A priceless primer which cor- rects plenty of prevailing miscon- ceptions about AIDS merely by accurately reporting medical evi- dence rather than re-circulating false rumors.
