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cristyd's review against another edition
4.0
Insightful community and public health lessons focused on HIV AIDS tapping into the experts experiencing the crisis. Lots of techniques in place today. Drug, sex-workers, politics, money, research,and studies. Epi-nerds will geek out!
sophronisba's review against another edition
3.0
An interesting book by AIDS activist Elizabeth Pisani (although she disavows the term "activist," preferring "nerd"). Part memoir, part analysis of contemporary AIDS programs. I preferred the analysis to the memoir. A little repetitive in the second half.
wealhtheow's review against another edition
3.0
Pisani has been working in AIDS research pretty much since its inception, at all the big organizations: UNAIDS, WHO, CDC, World Bank, Ministries of Health in China, Indonesia, East Timor, and the Philippines. She tells the story of the evolution of AIDS programs, which started out as shamefully poorly funded and are now overwhelmed with badly managed donor money. Personal and political ideologies have blocked the most effective programs, channeled money toward populations that don't need it, used resources in the most inefficient ways possible (for example, when she wrote this book most US aid was tied up so that a program in Asia would have to buy condoms made in the US and ship them across the world, as opposed to just buying the much cheaper condoms made locally. Same problem but on a grander scale with drugs, which pharma companies made a mint off of, even after Brazil and India rebelled against their patents and started making their own generics)...Pisani has a light, cheeky tone for most of this book, but hints of righteous anger filter through, mostly in the form of bitingly sarcastic footnotes. God, I love sarcastic footnotes.
Definitely worth a read if one is interested in donor aid, AIDS, or the research of infectious diseases.
Definitely worth a read if one is interested in donor aid, AIDS, or the research of infectious diseases.
melissa_reads's review against another edition
5.0
Great book for anyone interested in public health or HIV.
I worked as a HIV test counselor for a year and still learned many things from this book.
Amazing read.
I worked as a HIV test counselor for a year and still learned many things from this book.
Amazing read.
now_booking's review against another edition
4.0
Fascinating take on the global AIDS epidemic!
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 is not interested in prevarication or sensitivity and will step on any toes required to get her point across and she is intentional in this- from the start of the book, she tells you of her fatigue with all the pussyfooting that goes on in the AIDS discourse, in her opinion, getting in the way of the plainspeaking that might bring about useful discussions and actual change. She, like everyone who works in the field, is very convinced of her own ideologies and as a scientist (specifically an epidemiologist), she puts out her data to convince you that she is right, and in fairness, she is very convincing.
As a reader of this book, and as someone from a developing country, it needs to be said that this book is not for “us.” By us, I mean readers from the countries that would be defined as “most affected.” Pisani‘s writing about developing countries is what I imagine colonialist’s who first arrived African shores sounded like in their clinical anthropological descriptions of “the natives and their ways.” Whilst Pisani is equally scathing about Western leaders, there is certainly a degree of condescension when she’s writing about certain regions (Africa being one). Even her beloved Indonesia doesn’t escape her patronizing tone at times. Once I recognized that this was not a book that was afraid of sounding racist or bigoted or condescending (she warns you early on) and once I realized that I was not the target audience for this book, which seems more aimed at whistleblowing funders to their constituents (tax-payers), I was pretty much unoffended.
The book title is pretty accurate. This is not one of those pop science book that promises you one thing but delivers dry textbook biscuits that no one is interested in reading. If anything, the title is underselling just how “red light district” this book is. She might have called it “Sex, Drugs and HIV” and that would have been an accurate summary because basically, all the science is viewed through the lens of the human pursuit of pleasure above all things even common sense. I learned a lot more about sub-cultures and sexual and injected drug use networking in developing countries than I’d ever known before- from proper sex workers to warias (transsexual sometimes prostitutes) to rent boys, to men sleeping with men who don’t identify as gay, to “faithful” couples who occasionally sell sex, to injected drug users who know better than to share needles or inject drugs but do it anyway... the list is endless- the high risk subcultures numerous and if anyone is treated with compassion by the author in this book, it is these very high risk populations who according to her get the least focus and the least programming even though they have the highest need. And because of the compassion with which Pisani treats these populations, you’ll find your compassion towards them increase.
My takeaway from this book is that Elizabeth Pisani comes across as a lover of pleasure, an asked of questions, a shaker of tables, a master of data, a know it all, a condescending so-and-so, a compassionate supporter of the underrepresented and many other things along those lines. However, she’s not wrong in her call for interventions to be more evidence-supported and less based on feelings, ideologies and self-interest. I highly recommend reading this book if you’re even vaguely interested in sex, drug use and HIV programming.
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 is not interested in prevarication or sensitivity and will step on any toes required to get her point across and she is intentional in this- from the start of the book, she tells you of her fatigue with all the pussyfooting that goes on in the AIDS discourse, in her opinion, getting in the way of the plainspeaking that might bring about useful discussions and actual change. She, like everyone who works in the field, is very convinced of her own ideologies and as a scientist (specifically an epidemiologist), she puts out her data to convince you that she is right, and in fairness, she is very convincing.
As a reader of this book, and as someone from a developing country, it needs to be said that this book is not for “us.” By us, I mean readers from the countries that would be defined as “most affected.” Pisani‘s writing about developing countries is what I imagine colonialist’s who first arrived African shores sounded like in their clinical anthropological descriptions of “the natives and their ways.” Whilst Pisani is equally scathing about Western leaders, there is certainly a degree of condescension when she’s writing about certain regions (Africa being one). Even her beloved Indonesia doesn’t escape her patronizing tone at times. Once I recognized that this was not a book that was afraid of sounding racist or bigoted or condescending (she warns you early on) and once I realized that I was not the target audience for this book, which seems more aimed at whistleblowing funders to their constituents (tax-payers), I was pretty much unoffended.
The book title is pretty accurate. This is not one of those pop science book that promises you one thing but delivers dry textbook biscuits that no one is interested in reading. If anything, the title is underselling just how “red light district” this book is. She might have called it “Sex, Drugs and HIV” and that would have been an accurate summary because basically, all the science is viewed through the lens of the human pursuit of pleasure above all things even common sense. I learned a lot more about sub-cultures and sexual and injected drug use networking in developing countries than I’d ever known before- from proper sex workers to warias (transsexual sometimes prostitutes) to rent boys, to men sleeping with men who don’t identify as gay, to “faithful” couples who occasionally sell sex, to injected drug users who know better than to share needles or inject drugs but do it anyway... the list is endless- the high risk subcultures numerous and if anyone is treated with compassion by the author in this book, it is these very high risk populations who according to her get the least focus and the least programming even though they have the highest need. And because of the compassion with which Pisani treats these populations, you’ll find your compassion towards them increase.
My takeaway from this book is that Elizabeth Pisani comes across as a lover of pleasure, an asked of questions, a shaker of tables, a master of data, a know it all, a condescending so-and-so, a compassionate supporter of the underrepresented and many other things along those lines. However, she’s not wrong in her call for interventions to be more evidence-supported and less based on feelings, ideologies and self-interest. I highly recommend reading this book if you’re even vaguely interested in sex, drug use and HIV programming.
lauraadriana78's review against another edition
4.0
This books is required reading for anyone working in International Health in the Developing World, specifically those working in HIV/AIDS prevention, education and/or care.
It's quite informative if a bit preachy at times and is an interesting analysis on PEPFAR and it's impact on HIV prevalence in Africa.
It's quite informative if a bit preachy at times and is an interesting analysis on PEPFAR and it's impact on HIV prevalence in Africa.
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