The Return of the White Plague Global Poverty and the New Tuberculosis

by Gandy, Matthew; Zumla, Alimuddin

• ISBN13: 9781859846698
• ISBN10: 1859846696
• Edition: 00
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-10-17
• Publisher: VERSO

Summary

As fear and paranoia about chemical weapons and bioterrorism are ratcheted up by Western governments, a global health catastrophe threatens to undermine all efforts to eradicate poverty and human suffering. The resurgence of old diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria, along with the spread of new diseases such as HIV, are already having devastating consequences for ever increasing numbers of people worldwide. Tuberculosis, a disease destined as recently as thirty years ago for complete eradication, is now back on the increase: a total of one third of the world's population is intected with the TB bacillus, and the disease is currently killing around two million people each year. Contrary to popular belief, the enidemic is not contined to, sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia: refiecting the increasing divide between rich and poor everywhere, outbreaks of the disease have occurred in London and New York, and prevatence is alarmingly high in eastern Europe and Russia. This book provides an international survey of current thought on the spread and control of tuberculosis, covering historical, social, political, and medical aspects of the crisis. While the contrihutors may differ in their opinions over specific treatments or policy strategies, all are agreed on the overriding thesis of the book -- that the resurgence of disease is one of the most telling indictments of the failure of global political and economic institutions to anprove the lives of ordinary people. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Matthew Gandy teaches geography at University College London and has published wisely on urban and environmental issues Alimuddin Zumla is the Professor of infectious Diseases and international Health at the University College Medical School

Table of Contents

Prologue: The Return of Old Diseases and the Appearance of New Ones	1	(6)
Richard Lewontin and Richard Levins
Introduction	7	(8)
Matthew Gandy and Alimuddin Zumla
PART I History and Context
1 Life without Germs: Contested Episodes in the History of Tuberculosis	15	(24)
Matthew Gandy
2 Immigration, Race and Geographies of Difference in the Tuberculosis Pandemic	39	(16)
Nicholas B. King
3 Gender and Tuberculosis: A Conceptual Framework for Identifying Gender Inequalities	55	(15)
Anna Thorson and Vinod K. Diwan
4 War and Disease: Some Perspectives on the Spatial and Temporal Occurrence of Tuberculosis in Wartime	70	(25)
Matthew Smallman-Raynor and Andrew D. Cliff
PART II The 'New' Tuberculosis
5 The Present Global Burden of Tuberculosis	95	(17)
Léopold Blanc and Mukund Uglekar
6 Tuberculosis and HIV Infection in Sub-Saharan Africa	112	(13)
Anthony D. Harries, Nicola J. Hargreaves and Alimuddin Zumla
7 The Recent Tuberculosis Epidemic in New York City: Warning from the De-Developing World	125	(22)
Deborah Wallace and Rodrick Wallace
8 Private Wealth and Public Squalor: The Resurgence of Tuberculosis in London	147	(16)
Alistair Story and Ken Citron
9 The Social Impact of Multi-drug-resistant Tuberculosis: Haiti and Peru	163	(15)
Paul Farmer and David Walton
10 The House of the Dead Revisited: Prisons, Tuberculosis and Public Health in the Former Soviet Bloc	178	(17)
Vivien Stern
PART III Advocacy and Action
11 Rethinking the Social Context of Illness: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Tuberculosis Control	195	(12)
Christian Lienhardt, Jessica Ogden and Oumou Sow
12 Reflections on the Role of Science in Tuberculosis Control	207	(15)
T. Mark Doherty, Martin E. Munk and Peter Andersen
13 Global Poverty and Tuberculosis: Implications for Ethics and Human Rights	222	(15)
Solomon R. Benatar
Epilogue: Politics, Science and the 'New' Tuberculosis	237	(6)
Alimuddin Zumla and Matthew Gandy
Notes	243	(60)
About the Contributors	303	(6)
Resource List	309	(3)
Acknowledgements	312	(1)
Index	313