Unveiling the Reality of AIDS: Examining the Impact of Bureaucrats, Brothels, and Business on the Global Health Crisis

J-Phi: I am not huge into non-fiction but as someone working in public health who saw this listed as the first book of the APHA (American Public Health Association)’s new book club, I decided to check this out. It’s the kind of book I read in grad school but wouldn’t have necessary have selected if not for the book club. Or so I thought.

The “Wisdom of Whores” is a fascinating take on the global AIDS epidemic that was written about a decade ago, but which is sadly still very relevant in talking about the way we address not just AIDS policy and programming, but health policy and programming in general. The author focuses on talking about all the missed opportunity, wasted funds, things we’ve done wrong over decades of programming. Her thesis looks a lot at the dichotomy between science and evidence and ideology and self-interest, between epidemiology and politics and between plain-speaking and political correctness. In short, Elizabeth Pisani is not shy to list EVERYTHING wrong with AIDS programming and believe me, the list according to her, is long. She, like everyone who works in the field, is very convinced of her own ideologies and as a scientist (specifically an...

United States on Jul 29, 2018

John P. Jones III: …is what Elizabeth Pisani says she does for a living. She says that it is a lot easier than trying to explain that she is an epidemiologist working in HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. She is feisty, irreverent, provocative, knowledgeable, and deeply caring; a human who can be brought to tears simply by looking at numbers – and knowing what they truly represent. Her outlook is admirably captured by the title to her book. She does not specifically cite Thomas Pynchon’s “Proverbs for Paranoids”, the one that posits: “If you have them asking the wrong questions, you don’t have to worry about the right answers,” but she sure did act upon those truths. In the preface, she relates what the professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine asked at the end of the first lecture: “Why was there a fourteen-year gap between the first case-controlled study showing a strong association between smoking and lung cancer, and the first US Surgeon General’s report on the dangers of smoking?” She reports that there was only stony silence in the classroom, so she dared to break the ice with: “You’re asking the wrong question…Surely the key question is: how...

United States on May 30, 2016

Jolin S: There is a lot information in this book in terms of statistics but Elizabeth does put her point across quite clearly.
Again a good book to have the shelf, it gives a different perspective to the world of HIV and the political scene.

United Kingdom on Feb 06, 2015

Catherine Spender: This book is a monument to the public health workers who gather the evidence and set out to implement it. Elizabeth Pisani writes deftly and her compassion for the individual turns statistics into individuals.

United Kingdom on Jun 28, 2014

Linny1: Surprisingly for a non-fiction book about development, in particular the 'HIV&AIDS business', this book is a real 'page turner'. The author uses her extensive experience and knowledge to document how the HIV Business has developed over the years. This thought provoking book is a 'must read' for anyone working in development. There are lessons to be learned and insights to be gained.

United Kingdom on Aug 16, 2012

BlueSkiesForever: An interesting and provocative look at the HIV epidemic and the public health response. With stigma on the one side and political correctness on the other it's perhaps not surprising that many interventions have lacked effectiveness. Even if, like me, you find Pisani's writing style grating you'd do well to persevere with this book: you will learn something. Her arguments for the impact of long-term concurrent relationships (not promiscuity) on the spread of HIV within Africa were especially interesting.

United Kingdom on Jun 10, 2010

pmh1: I met Elizabeth Pisani in one of her earlier lives when she was a business journalist. She was pretty impressive at that, but she would end an email with "got to get back to sexual networking now". She was already a medical demographer moonlighting as journalist. Now she has written a remarkable book about her life and work. It's partly a hard-nosed statistical account of why so much of what we are told about AIDS is wrong, backed up by 40 pages of footnotes and references and a website. In particular how little AIDS actually spreads among heterosexuals outside southern and eastern Africa; but telling people that everyone was at risk was the way to mobilise public attention. It's also the story of the author's nights doing "qualitative research" in dodgy bars and street corners in the sleaziest parts of Asia, which is often very funny as well as shocking. And the politics of the AIDS Industry. The book was written while the Bush administration was pushing its "faith-based" programmes while insisting that drugs available at $1.50 a dose be bought from US suppliers at $71. Meanwhile funding was rolling in on massive scale, but very often, Pisani tells us, for spending on the wrong...

United Kingdom on Jul 14, 2009