Description

Paul Farmer has battled AIDS in rural Haiti and deadly strains of drugresistant tuberculosis in the slums of Peru A physiciananthropologist with more than fifteen years in the field Farmer writes from the front lines of the war against these modern plagues and shows why even more than those of history they target the poor This peculiarly modern inequality that permeates AIDS TB malaria and typhoid in the modern world and that feeds emerging or reemerging infectious diseases such as Ebola and cholera is laid bare in Farmers harrowing memoir rife with stories about diseases and human suffering

Farmer points out that most current explanatory strategies from costeffective treatment to patient noncompliance inevitably lead to blaming the victims In reality larger forces global as well as local determine why some people are sick and others are shielded from risk Farmer writes of what can be done in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds by physicians and medical students determined to treat those in need whether in their home countries or through medical outreach programs like Doctors without Borders Infections and Inequalities weds meticulous scholarship in medical anthropology with a passion for solutionsremedies for the plagues of the poor and the social illnesses that have sustained them