Book: Big Shot: Passion, Politics, and the Struggle for an AIDS Vaccine

Patricia Thomas

Public Affairs, £19.99, pp 515 ISBN 1 891620 88 6

Rating:

Every day more than 10 000 people around the globe become infected with HIV—two to three times the number who perished in the terrorist attacks of September 11. Day in and day out, the widening circle of AIDS quietly expands.

In the 20 years since AIDS was first recognised, more than 25 million people have died from complications of HIV infection. Another 40 million are today living with HIV, most with no hope of accessing costly new antiretroviral drugs. The staggering human toll of the AIDS pandemic has no historical precedent.

Ambitious preventive programmes based on public education, testing and counselling, and the distribution of condoms …