The River : A Journey to the Source of HIV and AIDS

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Description

Examines the conceivable source of HIV, analyzing various theories concerning its origins and investigating current scientific inquiries into HIV, AIDS, and the search for a cure
For the entire devastation and suffering AIDS has caused around the world, we have devoted surprisingly little attention to its beginnings. Former UN official and BBC correspondent Edward Hooper hopes to find the source of AIDS in The River, a stunningly comprehensive yet deeply engaging scientific history of the disease. Through more than 10 years of research comprising over 600 interviews and untold hours of library work, Hooper has uncovered a complex, interlocking set of stories–of scientific research, of medical assistance to the Third World, of political and economic exigencies that drive the courses of our lives–and brought them together in over 1,000 pages of text, footnotes, references, and illustrations.

His thesis, that HIV made the jump from simians to humans via the administration of oral polio vaccine in Africa in the 1950s, is still controversial, but his arguments are powerful, broad, and undeniable–all that may be lacking is conclusive proof. Like a good scientist (and, sad to say, unlike any HIV researcher to date), he offers several easy tests of his hypothesis. His tales of brilliant epidemiological deductions, biochemical comparisons, and physiological insights ought to convince the medical establishment that the answer can and must be found, both to help us handle the current crisis and to keep us from creating new ones of its ilk. In a litigation-weary world, though, it sort of feels that it is going to take the type of tireless, impartial research found in The River to show us–and our leaders–that blame must take a back seat to truth when extreme circumstances demand it. –Rob Lightner

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