Infections and Inequalities
by Paul Farmer
University of California Press
Hardcover (1999) and Paperback (2001)
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"I cannot look back at the predictions made in the first edition of this book with the slightest satisfaction. Oh, they've all come true: if you want to feel like a prophet these days, predict that the poor will continue to do poorly, even in boom times...

It is my hope that Infections and Inequalities might serve a pragmatic end by calling into question the logic that promises a future in which health equity will play a shrinking role. Only by struggling for higher standards for the destitute sick will we avoid another unappealing role-that of academic Cassandras who prophecy the coming plagues, but do little to avert them. Then will come the time for more universal tears... In the interim, shoring up double standards for the poor will be identified most closely with the shedding of crocodile tears."

From the Preface to the Paperback Edition, Infections and Inequalities.

Reviews

"In Infections and Inequalities, Paul Farmer, who was trained in both infectious disease and anthropology, uses these disciplines and his medical experience in Haiti to provide a trenchant analysis of the biological and social realities of chronic infectious disease."
New England Journal of Medicine

"Infections and Inequalities does not mistake dispassionate for neutral. Its passages are unapologetically passionate--and so they should be--but well reasoned."
The Lancet

"The strength of this book The strength of this book is the combination of the author's trenchant analysis, his undoubted academic credentials and his front-line experience as clinician and anthropologist."
Michael Marmot, Nature Medicine

"In his moving and angry book [Farmer] gives a real-time account of contemporary plagues--AIDS and tuberculosis in Haiti and Peru."
Hugh Pennington, The Times Higher Education Supplement