Publisher's Synopsis
AIDS is the most devastating communicable disease in history, and poor countries have been most severely impacted by the pandemic. Since the mid-1990s, the use of antiretroviral drug therapies has dramatically extended life expectancy and improved life quality for those with HIV/AIDS who can afford the costly treatments. Yet even as it raises new hope, this medical advance has intensified ethical and political questions about AIDS. Antiretroviral use by those with money and access throws the contrasting outcomes among AIDS sufferers throughout the world into high relief. It has also revealed what many people with AIDS have known all along: the disease is not only propagated by the virus, but by racism, entrenched poverty, structural inequality, and the legacy of colonial domination and exploitation.*BR**BR*Global AIDS: Myths and Facts aims to present the facts about HIV/AIDS, and empower people for informed, active participation in the global struggle against this plague. To mobilize the energy, commitment, and resources required for the fight, Irwin and Millen tackle 10 destructive myths that hamper implementation of effective and equitable anti-HIV/AIDS programs.*BR**BR*World leaders like Kofi Annan have announced treatment and prevention initiatives that are opening new possibilities. But the authors argue that only sustained political pressure from the grassroots-forging links across national boundaries; professional and social categories; and racial, ethnic, and religious identities-will halt the pandemic's spread.
