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The Invisible Cure: Why We Are Losing the Fight Against AIDS in Africa Paperback – May 27, 2008

by Helen Epstein (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars 49 ratings
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A New York Times Notable Book of 2007

The Invisible Cure is an account of Africa's AIDS epidemic from the inside--a revelatory dispatch from the intersection of village life, government intervention, and international aid. Helen Epstein left her job in the US in 1993 to move to Uganda, where she began work on a test vaccine for HIV. Once there, she met patients, doctors, politicians, and aid workers, and began exploring the problem of AIDS in Africa through the lenses of medicine, politics, economics, and sociology. Amid the catastrophic failure to reverse the epidemic, she discovered a village-based solution that could prove more effective than any network of government intervention and international aid, an intuitive response that calls into question many of the fundamental assumptions about the AIDS in Africa.

Written with conviction, knowledge, and insight, The Invisible Cure will change how we think about the worst health crisis of the past century--and indeed about every issue of global public health.

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  1. Print length
    324 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publication date
    May 27, 2008
  4. Dimensions
    5.5 x 0.78 x 8.5 inches
  5. ISBN-10
    0312427727
  6. ISBN-13
    978-0312427726
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“An enlightening and troubling book.” ―The New York Times

“Helen Epstein is one of a rare species: the scientist turned storyteller. . . . [A] blunt, informed critique.” ―Salon.com

“The UN and President Bush should not just read Epstein's book, they should distribute it around Africa.” ―The Sunday Times (London)

“Elegant prose, a scientific background, and a journalist's searching anecdotal eye.” ―Nature

“Sometimes a bolt of clarity shoots out of the blue . . . as it will for readers of this book who yearn for insights on how a deadly virus now infects an estimated 25 million Africans and has killed untold millions more.” ―The New York Times Book Review

“Epstein has a compelling thesis, and she explains it in lucid, sometimes extraordinary prose.” ―The Nation

About the Author

HELEN EPSTEIN writes frequently on public health for various publications including The New York Review of Books and The New York Times Magazine. She is a visiting research scholar at the Center for Health and Wellbeing at Princeton University. She is the author of The Invisible Cure.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Picador; First Edition (May 27, 2008)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 324 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0312427727
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0312427726
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.2 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.78 x 8.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 out of 5 stars 49 ratings

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4.4 out of 5 stars
49 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the book very readable and compelling. They describe it as ultimately inspiring, with one customer noting how it allows readers to learn and empathize with the subject matter.

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7 customers mention "Readability"7 positive0 negative

Customers find the book very good and compulsively readable, with one customer describing it as the most important book of the year.

"...The Invisible Cure is gripping, compulsively readable, and resonated deeply with me in ways I did not expect...." Read more

"...A very good read, my only complaint and the reason for 4 stars is that the flow of the book can feel choppy at points." Read more

"...It is readable, impassioned and brilliant, and despite its savage denunciation of the failures of the West to deal with the AIDS crisis, it is an..." Read more

"...formally trained as a molecular biologist, Helen Epstein is an excellent writer and paints an accurate picture of the history of the HIV/AIDS..." Read more

7 customers mention "Uplifting"7 positive0 negative

Customers find the book uplifting, describing it as ultimately inspiring, with one customer noting how it allows readers to learn and empathize.

"...effective solution to community problems, this book is informatiive, affirming, and ultimately inspiring and uplifting, despite the grim subject..." Read more

"...This book is for public health junkies, people interested in the HIV/AIDS and also people who are interested in learning more about controversial..." Read more

"...It is readable, impassioned and brilliant, and despite its savage denunciation of the failures of the West to deal with the AIDS crisis, it is an..." Read more

"...A very moving book that helps us realize the ways in which we will end this horrible disease have little to do with big pharma and a western-..." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • Just Mike
    5.0 out of 5 stars Must read
    Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2012
    Verified Purchase
    This is not the kind of book I would have ever thought to just pick up for myself. I live - literally - half a world away from the people and places described in this book; and my career life has been focused on alleviating a very different kind of suffering - that of families caught up in the public child welfare system. I had a chance meeting with the author, she asked for my cooperation in researching a story on child welfare, and I thought I'd read her book just to gain some insight into her thinking and worldview. The Invisible Cure is gripping, compulsively readable, and resonated deeply with me in ways I did not expect. For anyone who has felt the frustration of challenging the prevailing orthodoxy in their own line of work, for anyone who has struggled to undertand how politics and greed can infect and corrupt even the most honorably motivated humanitarian projects, and for anyone who believes in the power and potential of grassroots community organizing as the most effective solution to community problems, this book is informatiive, affirming, and ultimately inspiring and uplifting, despite the grim subject matter. Highly recommended.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Kristen Glauser
    4.0 out of 5 stars Dynamic and thought provoking glimpse into the HIV/AIDS Epidemic in East & Southern Africa
    Reviewed in the United States on June 17, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    Epstein does a great job intertwining her own story into the history of the epidemic in the late 80s-present day. There is a lot of technical and personal information presented throughout which allows the reader to learn and empathize. This book is for public health junkies, people interested in the HIV/AIDS and also people who are interested in learning more about controversial topics. A very good read, my only complaint and the reason for 4 stars is that the flow of the book can feel choppy at points.
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  • Big Wind
    5.0 out of 5 stars A CLASSIC WORK
    Reviewed in the United States on May 15, 2007
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    The most important book published on AIDS in a long time, and one of the most important books of the year. If you liked Rachel Carson's Silent Spring or And The Band Played On, you will love this book. It is readable, impassioned and brilliant, and despite its savage denunciation of the failures of the West to deal with the AIDS crisis, it is an essentially optimistic work. Publishers Weekly in a starred review said it will save lives, and that is not hyperbole. I urge anyone who is interested in the greatest medical crisis of our time; anyone who is interested in Africa; anyone who is outraged by the failure of the UN, the WHO and the Bush administration to deal with this tragedy, to buy this book and give it to your friends. It is the kind of book that will change peoples' minds and will move continents. It will be read for years to come...
    15 people found this helpful
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  • In Progress
    5.0 out of 5 stars An in-depth read by a great writer
    Reviewed in the United States on January 13, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    For anyone interested in HIV/AIDS in Africa, this is a must-read. Although formally trained as a molecular biologist, Helen Epstein is an excellent writer and paints an accurate picture of the history of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa, with a specific focus on Uganda, East Africa, and Southern Africa. A very moving book that helps us realize the ways in which we will end this horrible disease have little to do with big pharma and a western-centered solution.
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  • Daniel B. Clendenin
    4.0 out of 5 stars hiv prevention: now and how
    Reviewed in the United States on August 6, 2007
    "As a woman living with HIV," says Beatrice Were of Uganda, "I am often asked whether there will ever be a cure for HIV/AIDS, and my answer is that there is already a cure. It lies in the strength of women, families and communities who support and empower each other to break the silence around AIDS and take control of their sexual lives." With a vaccine against HIV far off in the distant future (if at all), and with treatment of AIDS in the two-thirds world difficult, expensive, and limited in effect, the name of the game in HIV-AIDS is prevention. But in places like Africa, which is the focus of Helen Epstein's book, prevention is not as simple as it sounds. As she notes in her appendix, measles, syphilis, tuberculosis, and other entirely preventable diseases still kill millions of people even though they can be treated for pennies.

    Why has HIV-AIDS ravaged eastern and southern Africa like no place on earth? "In 2005," she writes, "roughly 40 percent of all those infected with HIV lived in just eleven countries in this region-- home to less than 3 percent of the world's population." In some of these countries the infection rates have hit 30 percent, decimating the general population, while in the west, for example, rates hover at about 1% and are generally limited to specific demographics like gay men, intravenous drug users, and commercial sex workers." Theories abound about this discrepancy, but Epstein argues a narrow point, that Africa's problem is not profound promiscuity, or even the normal culprits of high risk groups like prostitutes or truck drivers, but instead a social phenomenon of "concurrent partners." That is, Africans do not have more sexual partners than in other places in the world, and nowhere near as many as gay men among whom infection rates are exponentially lower; but they do have a small number of sexual partners concurrently, at the same time, rather than one at a time or sequentially. This has set the virus loose among the general population like a runaway train.

    And why has prevention been so elusive? Epstein appeals to what she calls the comprehensive "social ecology" of denial, silence, shame, adverse gender roles, and stigma about HIV-AIDS. Western-initiated and donor-funded programs will always be less successful than listening to Africans themselves and their own suggestions about how to address the problem. Uganda, of course, has been the amazing success story in this regard, and the subject of bitter debates about why. In 1989 Uganda had one of the highest infection rates in the world, but from about 1992-2002 the infection rate dropped by two-thirds. The key to the success, argues Epstein, was not in the billions of dollars from the west, but from the "collective efficacy" of a "shared calamity," by people helping each other and talking openly about the scourge. In particular, "partner reduction," she says, and not the much vaunted condom use, helped Ugandans to address the cultural phenomenon of concurrent partners. Partner reduction, as one worker described it, is thus the "neglected middle child of the ABC approach" of abstinence, fidelity ("be faithful"), and condoms. Zero Grazing, as Uganda's president Yoweri Museveni called for, is thus the silent cure already available, however valuable other prescriptions.

    Epstein, a molecular biologist who has written widely on public health issues, combines rigorous science and the anecdotal evidence of substantial field research. She's clearly as comfortable with and interested in meeting with a dozen African widows under a mango tree as she is in the latest results of a demographic study. Her book has received strong reviews in the New York Times and the New York Review of Books (where her mother was a co-editor before she died), and also a rebuttal of sorts on the home page of UNAIDS that was provoked by her somewhat conspiratorial stance toward research that she argues they ignored because it didn't fit their partisan ideology.
    18 people found this helpful
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  • Kwame Asamoa
    5.0 out of 5 stars Quality of book
    Reviewed in the United States on January 20, 2024
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    An interesting book to read. The quality of the binding is good.
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  • Tanja
    1.0 out of 5 stars Not what I was looking for
    Reviewed in the United States on November 12, 2022
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    Not what I was looking for so I'm going to return the book
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  • Film Lover
    5.0 out of 5 stars Best book about HIV/AIDS in Africa I've ever read
    Reviewed in the United States on November 17, 2010
    Verified Purchase
    This author is amazing. She was able to summarize the HIV/AIDS situation in Africa and make sense of it. Loved this book and use parts of it when I teach this topic at a medium side university in the midwest.
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • Jen the nurse
    5.0 out of 5 stars recommend
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 27, 2015
    Verified Purchase
    Loved this book!

    Read in 24 hours, although fiction I read it as part of my public health course reading list!
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  • svitsai
    1.0 out of 5 stars Book not received
    Reviewed in Germany on December 20, 2017
    Verified Purchase
    Also did not receive the book too. Still very disappointed. Waited for almost 2 months too still no book so sad
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