Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues

Hardcover: 419 pages
ISBN 0520229134
978-0520229136
University of California Press
April 2003
(click the button below for the very best currently available price for this important resource)

Paul Farmer has battled AIDS in rural Haiti and deadly strains of drug-resistant tuberculosis in the slums of Peru. A physician-anthropologist 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 re-emerging) infectious diseases such as Ebola and cholera, is laid bare in Farmer's harrowing stories of sickness and suffering.

Challenging the accepted methodologies of epidemiology and international health, he points out that most current explanatory strategies, from "cost-effectiveness" 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. Yet this moving account is far from a hopeless inventory of insoluble problems.

Farmer writes of what can be done in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds, by physicians determined to treat those in need. Infections and Inequalities weds meticulous scholarship with a passion for solutions--remedies for the plagues of the poor and the social maladies that have sustained them.

"Farmer's work diverges strikingly from the current 'emerging infectious disease' literature, much of which misses essential points about causation that Farmer brings out very well." --Frederick L. Dunn, M.D.

"Farmer argues against those who would insist that the health problems of the poor require and must await structural changes, that underdevelopment negates the efforts of physicians. He believes there is much that doctors can do, not simply as activists but as physicians." --Randall Packard, author of White Plague, Black Labor

Paul Farmer is Professor of Medical Anthropology at Harvard Medical School and Founding Director of Partners In Health. Among his books are Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights & the New War on the Poor (2004), The Uses of Haiti (1994), and AIDS and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame (California, 1992). Farmer is the winner of a MacArthur Foundation "genius" award and the Margaret Mead Award for his contributions to public anthropology. He recently held the Blaise Pascal International Chair at the College de France.

If you are interested in policy or books about health care reform, please see our up-to-date collection here: Politics, Policy & Reform.

You may also be interested in / The Directory of Healthcare Recruiters /

Jump to a List / Health Administration & Leadership / Physician Executive, Medical Staff & Practice Management / Finance, Accounting, Economics, Billing & Reimbursement / Coding for Hospital, Physician & Clinical Services / Law, Malpractice, Ethics, Accreditation & Compliance / Quality Improvement, Outcomes & Customer Service / Risk Management, Security, Error Reduction & Patient Safety / Information Systems, Technology & Medical Records / Clinical Management & Executive Nursing / Behavioral Health, Social Work & Psychiatry Management / Human Resources, Management & Supervision / Directories, Data, Trends & Benchmarks / Software & CD-ROMs / Gift Ideas & Recommended Gifts / Journals, Magazines & Newsletters / Politics, Policy & Reform / Search for Books / Books Index /

Go to / Home Page / Toolbox for Health Administrators / Bookstore