AIDS

The sudden appearance of a truly new disease is a wake-up call. A new global pandemic of an infec-tious agent, transmitted through sexual contact and blood, aVecting alienated and/or deprived people and communities, infectious throughout, that causes a slowly progressive breakdown of defence against other infectious diseases, as well as causing dementia in some, and leads to a premature death, occurring in an era of extensive travel and rapid communication, is a veritable tocsin. These crude ingredients of AIDS as a medical and social phenomenon, blended with the poignant personal histories revealed to clinical professionals, spiced — as if this were necessary— by the fear, the prejudice, the wild theorising an