Description
Book SynopsisShows the extent to which AIDS research has been a social and political phenomenon and how the AIDS movement has transformed biomedical research practices through its capacity to garner credibility by novel strategies. This book is suitable for sociologists, physicians, and scientists.
Trade Review"As the AIDS movement is showing, people with diseases can play a profound part in saving themselves . . . A perceptive and useful analysis of this revolution in the democratization of medicine." * New York Times *
"Amid the dozens of books about AIDS, one stands out—
Impure Science. . . . Epstein has documented the fast-moving history of the epidemic's first years in an eloquent, readable narrative. . . . Intelligent and original." * New Scientist *
"A monumental book to read and ponder." * AIDS Book Review Journal *
"A study marked by scrupulous attention to detail that is at the same time almost breathtaking in its scope and probing in its analysis. It is at once a fine contemporary history of science, a sociology of knowledge, and an account of the emergence and fate of a social movement driven by rage and passion." * Science *
"For those seeking insights into what surely is the greatest medical story of our times,
Impure Science provides a rich lode of contextual material from which to consider howe we got here." * The Lancet *
"Lucid, balanced, and impressively well-documented." * American Scientist *
Table of ContentsACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Introduction: Controversy, Credibility, and the Public Character of AIDS Research
The Crisis of Credibility and the Rise of the AIDS Movement
Analyzing AIDS Controversies
The Plan of the Book
Conceptualizing AIDS: Some Intellectual Debts
PART ONE: THE POLITICS OF
CAUSATION
1. The Nature of a New Threat
The Discovery of a "Gay Disease" (1981-1982)
Lifestyle vs. Virus (1982-1983)
The Triumph of Retrovirology (1982-1984)
2. HIV and the Consolidation of Certainty
The Construction of Scientific Proof (1984-1986)
HIV as "Obligatory Passage Point"
3. Reopening the Causation Controversy
From Deafening Silence to the Pages of Science (1987-1988)
Consolidation and Refinement (1989-1991)
4. The Debate That Wouldn't Die
The Controversy Reignites (1991-1992.)
The Dynamics of Closure: Whither the Controversy? (1992-1995)
Causation and Credibility
PART TWO: THE POLITICS OF TREATMENT
5. Points of Departure
Targeting a Retrovirus (1984-1986)
Clinical Trials Take Center Stage (1986-1987)
6. "Drugs into Bodies"
Gaining Access (1987-1988)
A Knowledge-Empowered Movement
7. The Critique of Pure Science
AZT and the Politics of Interpretation (1989-1990)
Activism and the Manufacture of Knowledge (1989-1991)
8. Dilemmas and Divisions in Science and Politics
Combination Therapy and the "Surrogate Markers" Debate (1989-1992.)
Inside and Outside the System
9. Clinical Trials and Tribulations
The Search for New Directions (199z-1993)
Living with Uncertainty (1993-1995)
Conclusion: Credible Knowledge, Hierarchies of
Expertise, and the Politics of Participation in
Biomedicine
Science and the Struggle for Credibility
The Transformation of AIDS Research
The Legacy of AIDS Activism
METHODOLOGICAL APPENDIX
NOTES
INDEX
