History 591

Around us are pseudo-events, to which we adjust with a false consciousness adapted to see these events as true and real…The requirement of the present, the failure of the past, is the same: to provide a thoroughly self-conscious and self-critical human account of man. (Laing 1967:11) The history of the phenomenon known as AIDS has been the subject of extensive research, literature, and political debate. Although a wide array of viewpoints have opined on the subject, these differing worldviews have consistently presupposed a singular assumption: AIDS, the biological disease, exists as an ontological “reality”. Despite the differences in various descriptions of AIDS, a commonality runs through them: this is a “real ” disease. This subtle abstraction de-historicizes science; biology is granted autonomous primacy that transcends all experience. Even contemporary analyses by sociologists of science privilege AIDS as biology. The disease exists a priori, at most influenced by social factors only in its manifestations: …The biomedical aspects of AIDS can hardly be ignored; it is difficult to ignore a disease with a fatality rate approaching 100 percent…Biological mechanisms define an