The Wisdom of Whores: Bureaucrats, Brothels and the Business of AIDS
Posted by admin | Posted in HIV | Posted on 13-08-2010
5
- ISBN13: 9780393337655
- Condition: New
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Product Description
“[A] rollicking, eye-opening, hilarious account of the underbelly of international AIDS research.”—Carlin Romano, Philadelphia Inquirer As an epidemiologist researching AIDS, Elizabeth Pisani has been involved with international efforts to halt the disease for fourteen years. With swashbuckling wit, fierce honesty, and more than a little political incorrectness, she dishes on herself and her colleagues as they try to prod reluctant governments to fund HIV prevention for the people who need it most: drug injectors, gay men, sex workers, and johns. With verve and clarity, Pisani shows the general reader how her profession really works; how easy it is to draw wrong conclusions from “objective” data; and, shockingly, how much money is spent so very badly. 12 illustrations
The Wisdom of Whores: Bureaucrats, Brothels and the Business of AIDS
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Having recently returned from Malawi where I spent the last two years working in HIV prevention as a Peace Corps Volunteer, I found Elizabeth Pisani’s book to be an excellent analysis of the politics driving the mismanagement of HIV prevention and treatment funding around the globe, and an interesting insightful read as to the real situation on the ground. I read this book because I was considering an HIV prevention project in China, and she has extensive experience in SE Asia as well as in China. I found all the information in the book to be relevant and very current for all countries dealing with HIV issues.
My only negative comment would be that she references her website often but the resources are not there.
I would encourage anyone involved in HIV projects to read this book. It has just the right balance of facts and human stories without being depressing. It tells it like it is.
Rating: 5 / 5
After nearly a decade of conducting AIDS/HIV research in Southeast Asia, Elizabeth Pisani recants the lessons she has learned while helping governments and NGO’s reduce the spread of this disease. From stressing the importance of adequate disease surveillance to clearly outlining the ways that AIDS/HIV spreads throughout societies, Pisani clearly states the measures that must be taken in order to curtail the AIDS/HIV epidemic. In short, needle exchange programs as well as abundant access to condoms and lubricant for at-risk populations–mostly prostitutes, their customers, and drug injectors–offer the most potential for limiting the infection rate.
Response:
Overall, Pisani provides an insightful book. She responds to numerous counterarguments, provides a vast array of empirical evidence, as well as many personal anecdotes as case studies. Her passion and demand for policy clearly shows. She has avoided adopting any degree of ideology, developing policy recommendations that stem directly from evidence. Her work should be commended and utilized.
Pisani is a staunch advocate for HIV/AIDS prevention and her policies stem from that perspective. In other words, her analysis does not include other perspectives within social sciences. For example, Pisani argues that forcing NGOs to purchase supplies and materials from U.S. companies creates a highly inefficient system for providing AIDS/HIV prevention and treatment. However, she does not provide an economic analysis of this policy. In short, the added revenue to U.S. companies and subsequent boost to the American economy may outweigh the ineffectiveness within the HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment industry. Or it may not. Either way, Pisani neglects to provide analysis and her policies should be analyzed from several lenses before being adopted to avoid any unintended consequences.
Lastly, Pisani acknowledges the political dilemma for implementing her policy suggestion: people don’t like doing nice things for junkies like needle exchanges. She fails to provide any solutions to overcome this dilemma. Though creating awareness and understanding of the HIV epidemic is certainly one useful strategy (and one assumes this book is part of that strategy), Pisani never explains a framework for moving forward. Then again, Pisani is an epidemiologist and shouldn’t be faulted for not developing a strategy of policy advocation.
Bottom Line:
This book is required reading for anyone involved with AIDS/HIV. Not only has Pisani presented a decades worth of work in an incredibly engaging book, her work has immediate implications for NGOs and governments worldwide. Highly accessible and deeply informative characterizes the entire book.
For more reviews and a summary of Pisani’s main points, find us at Hand of Reason.
Rating: 5 / 5
“The Wisdom of Whores: Bureaucrats, Brothels and the Business of AIDS,” is a remarkable new book by London-based Elizabeth Pisani. The author, who is an epidemiologist, specializes in HIV surveillance and protection, and has provided research, analysis and policy advice for UNAIDS, the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Bank, governments on four continents, and other organizations. Pisani began her work life as an Asia-based journalist; and she brings considerable knowledge of Asia, an impassioned commitment to the eradication of AIDS, and a journalist’s clear, informal writing to the book at hand. It makes for quite a package.
The author formerly wrote for Reuters, and “The Economist;” she is evidently a hands-on sort of gal, who’s been out and about, principally in Asia, spending 14 years trying to figure out how AIDS spreads, and how to stop it. She’s met a great many bureaucrats in her efforts; also a great many whores, and quite a few brothel-keepers, too; her reports back from the front line are fascinatingly factual: despite the ultimate seriousness of her subject, they are entertainingly written, to boot. I wouldn’t have thought it possible.
She reaches a few surprisingly controversial, at this late date, conclusions: condoms used in sexual intercourse, and clean needles for injecting drug addicts, save lives. She argues against waste, foolishness, and fraud in the effort to beat the disease. She further argues that the way the Western world first became familiar with the disease, largely among the homosexual community, set disease circles and clichés of treatment that do not necessarily apply to society as a whole. Finally, she argues, convincingly to me, at least, that the horrendous swathe AIDS has taken through Africa, laying waste to whole towns and orphaning innumerable children, will not be the way AIDS will spread in other countries. This African pattern has been used to scare the world into greater AIDS awareness, and into donating greater sums of money to fight the epidemic, all to the good, she says; nevertheless, she argues, overwhelming political correctness has prevented the AIDS community from acknowledging that the patterns of sexual activity seen in Africa are simply different from those she sees elsewhere.
Well,who’d a thunk it? An entertaining, seriously educational, accessible, easy-to read book about AIDS, written by a qualified scientist, no less.
Rating: 4 / 5
Its rare to find a page turner in this subject but in this book I found one. This was particularly fascinating for me, given recent experience working in Nigeria and not so recent experience working in Indonesia. The shape of the epidemic is certainly different from place to place and I’m hopeful that future policy interventions on HIV/AIDS take a more country-tailored approach. This book gets into all of these issues, and more, particularly in regards to the lack of focus on prevention over the past few years. Highly recommended.
Rating: 5 / 5
Elizabeth Pisani delivers a book that is enjoyable to read, but more importantly, takes topics such as epidemiology and statistics collecting, and makes them fascinating to read. For anyone who read ‘And the Band Played On’ this is a great follow-up to get an idea of what has happened with the AIDS crisis since the 90s, and on an international level. The most interesting aspect is the spread of the pandemic in Muslim nations, and how this is being addressed. Buy it, read it, get informed.
And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic, 20th-Anniversary EditionTaxi to Tashkent: Two Years with the Peace Corps in Uzbekistan
Rating: 5 / 5