Persisting Pandemics : Syphilis, AIDS, and COVID - Powel H. Kazanjian

Persisting Pandemics

Syphilis, AIDS, and COVID

By: Powel H. Kazanjian

Hardcover | 15 November 2024

At a Glance

Hardcover


$318.25

or 4 interest-free payments of $79.56 with

 or 

Aims to ship in 10 to 15 business days

When will this arrive by?
Enter delivery postcode to estimate

Persisting Pandemics explores the history of syphilis and AIDS to provide insights into the limits of biomedicine and our experience with epidemics today. Novel therapies developed for syphilis and AIDS became renowned in the medical field and the broader public sphere as exemplars of biomedical innovations. Public health campaigns based on these spectacular biomedical advances, however, have repeatedly fallen short of their goals to eliminate syphilis and AIDS in the population. The diseases epitomize the power of innovative biomedical therapies for the individual while unveiling limitations of scientific medicine in the domain of public health. The need for a public health approach to address mistrust in science, government indifference, and racial inequalities is relevant for strategies to eliminate COVID-19 today. Persisting Pandemics argues that campaigns to eliminate these diseases have not succeeded because they have not adequately addressed how diseases like AIDS, syphilis, and COVID spread unevenly in populations according to race, ethnicity, and geographic location. Despite the expectation of public health officials that medical advances would render epidemics obsolete, new diseases continue to emerge and spread regardless of efforts to eliminate them. Medical doctor and historian Powel H. Kazanjian concludes that narratives of syphilis, AIDS and COVID, unlike smallpox, do not contain a discrete ending—at least not within the timelines specified by their elimination campaigns. Instead they will be a continued part of our existence.
Industry Reviews
"Kazanjian offers a sweeping study of telling moments in medicine's long struggle against infectious disease, bringing us a pointed message about our present public health challenges."
-- Christopher Crenner * Hudson-Major Professor of the History of Medicine, University of Kansas Medical Center *
"Carefully researched and meticulously documented, Persisting Pandemics discusses similarities in the history of syphilis and AIDS and what lessons this story has for the battle against COVID-19 and other infectious diseases. Kazanjian provides the most thorough analysis that I have seen of this topic, providing insights beneficial to those officials involved in dealing with the current pandemic, as well as those who will have to deal with future pandemics."
-- John Parascandola * author of Sex, Sin and Science: A History of Syphilis in America *

More in Social Aspects of Illness & Addictions

Blitzed : Drugs in Nazi Germany - Norman Ohler

RRP $22.99

$21.90

Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention - Johann Hari
Inflamed : Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice - Rupa Marya
Anna's Story - Bronwyn Donaghy

Paperback

RRP $27.99

$26.50

The Treatment : A mind-bending gripping speculative crime thriller - Sarah Moorhead
One Hundred Years of Dirt - Rick Morton

RRP $25.00

$23.75

The Bittersweet Bakery Cafe - Catherine Greer
Go Ask Alice - Anonymous

Paperback

RRP $16.99

$15.75

The Only Way to Stop Smoking Permanently - Allen Carr
Drug Use and Misuse : 9th Edition - Stephen Maisto

RRP $202.95

$168.75

17%
OFF
In Search of Respect : Selling Crack in El Barrio : 2nd edition - Philippe  Bourgois
April Fool's Day - Bryce Courtenay

RRP $26.95

$25.75

Drug Use in Australian Society : 2nd edition - Alison Ritter

RRP $99.95

$85.90

14%
OFF
SMALL TALK : 10 ADHD lies and how to stop believing them - Richard Pink
Skinful : A memoir of addiction - Robyn Flemming

RRP $34.99

$21.95

37%
OFF
No Time Like the Future : An Optimist Considers Mortality - Michael J Fox