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The Origin Of AIDS (2011)

by Jacques Pepin(Favorite Author)

4.12 of 5 Votes: 1

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Cambridge University Press

review 1: This is one of the most remarkable science books I've read in some time. It's astonishing to think that the HIV-1 epidemic is so thoroughly a legacy of colonialism (especially Belgian occupation of the Congo). Colonialism left a legacy of dirty needles used in (frequently useless) vaccination and treatment campaigns, abysmal economic conditions that led to rampant prostitution, and the introduction of incentives and technologies to encourage capture of chimpanzee meat in the first place. The author describes a harrowing story of coincidences and poor choices that led to a series of amplifications of HIV-1. It's a bit frightening to think what diseases are currently spreading at a slow rate, perhaps ready to fall into an exponential amplification like that what took place i... moren the brothels of Leopoldville, or the blood plasma processing facilities of Port-au-Prince.Without the amplification in Haiti that brought it to America in force, I wonder how long HIV would have taken to be noticed? Another decade? Two? Three? What other viruses are wending their way through the world, ready to spring into view when a coincidence allows them to be amplified, as occurred among the gay community in in the late 1970s in the US.
review 2: I think we are all a bit spoiled by the recent genre of dramatic page-turning science non-fiction (see: Richard Preston). This is NOT one of those books. Its pure science - so at times I missed our new genre of science page-turners. But in the end, the book's thoroughness and clarity was addicting in itself. An admirable undertaking that tho pure science, makes an attempt AND SUCCEEDS to explain everything to a layman. For me, who knew the minimum (um, "monkeys in africa" / "a gay airline steward goes on a multinational sex binge" - debunked by the way in this book), Pepin explains everything we know now about the spread of the Aids virus; and we know much more than i thought. Most remarkable is that he shows that it is likely that the disease has been around for thousands of years, but until the advent of euro-colonialism in central africa, the conditions for massive contagion did not exist. If you are incredibly curious, but incredibly lazy - read the last 2 chapters only - it summarizes and reiterates the rest of the book completely. But that is not my recommendation. less

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