Dow, Unity, and Max Essex - Saturday Is for Funerals
Wed, Aug. 3rd, 2011 03:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterThis is a short book on Botswana's HIV/AIDS epidemic, with personal stories and anecdotes supplied by Dow, a Botswana judge and novelist, and more general information about AIDS and HIV supplied by Essex. I picked this up because the cover copy promised something that wasn't just "Africa is DOOMED!," and I liked that it specifically focused on Botswana and was partially authored by someone from that country.
The chapters focus on topics such as mother-child HIV transmission, transmission via sexual partner, transmission via blood transfusion, the question of male circumcision in lowering the percentage of transmission, and etc. Each chapter begins with an anecdote from Dow, usually compiled from stories of either her relatives, friends, or acquaintances. I particularly liked this format, since I think issues like AIDS can very easily slide into a "big picture" POV that obscures the individual lives involved. I was especially wary of this re: the African AIDS epidemic, since most of the press I've seen on it is stuff like Gap ads telling you to buy t-shirts to help cure AIDS in Africa! Sometimes with bonus pictures of Poor African People Looking Sad. I felt that Dow tried for a variety of people represented, though by the nature of the topic of the book, it's a bit hard to completely divorce the people represented from the general media portrayal of AIDS in Africa.
Essex's portions proved much less illuminating, since things about anti-retroviral drugs and methods of HIV transmission and how HIV works proved a bit repetitive after a while. I would have preferred a book that was all Dow and only a bit of medical background, largely because I think what I mostly see about AIDS in Africa is fairly dehumanized.
Dow touches on the difference that generic drugs have made in curbing the spread of HIV in Botswana, though the book's focus is more on people than on Big Pharma.
Overall, not necessarily deep or memorable, but it felt like a good introduction to the subject of AIDS in Botswana, written by people who wanted more in the portrayal than just doom and gloom and despair.
The chapters focus on topics such as mother-child HIV transmission, transmission via sexual partner, transmission via blood transfusion, the question of male circumcision in lowering the percentage of transmission, and etc. Each chapter begins with an anecdote from Dow, usually compiled from stories of either her relatives, friends, or acquaintances. I particularly liked this format, since I think issues like AIDS can very easily slide into a "big picture" POV that obscures the individual lives involved. I was especially wary of this re: the African AIDS epidemic, since most of the press I've seen on it is stuff like Gap ads telling you to buy t-shirts to help cure AIDS in Africa! Sometimes with bonus pictures of Poor African People Looking Sad. I felt that Dow tried for a variety of people represented, though by the nature of the topic of the book, it's a bit hard to completely divorce the people represented from the general media portrayal of AIDS in Africa.
Essex's portions proved much less illuminating, since things about anti-retroviral drugs and methods of HIV transmission and how HIV works proved a bit repetitive after a while. I would have preferred a book that was all Dow and only a bit of medical background, largely because I think what I mostly see about AIDS in Africa is fairly dehumanized.
Dow touches on the difference that generic drugs have made in curbing the spread of HIV in Botswana, though the book's focus is more on people than on Big Pharma.
Overall, not necessarily deep or memorable, but it felt like a good introduction to the subject of AIDS in Botswana, written by people who wanted more in the portrayal than just doom and gloom and despair.
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Mon, Aug. 8th, 2011 12:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Wed, Aug. 10th, 2011 07:33 pm (UTC)