A passionate appeal for Global equality in AIDS treatment.

MOVING MOUNTAINS: THE RACE TO TREAT GLOBAL AIDS

By Anne-Christine D'Adesky

(ISBN 1-84467-543-2) Published by Verso, 2004

Do industrialized nations want to supply HIV/AIDS medicine at low costs to developing countries? Anne-Christine D'Adesky, a journalist and HIV/AIDS activist, would say no. In her book, Moving Mountains: The Race to Treat Global AIDS, she explores the politics behind the pharmaceutical-government relations and regional efforts to combat the epidemic. This first-hand account illustrates the obstacles to providing HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment to those already affected with the virus in developing countries.

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Moving Mountains is not a numerical, fact-based book. Instead of just giving figures, the author also tells personalized stories that illustrate the larger picture. "These are numbing, staggering statistics; the numbers become abstractions. But each one is a life, a member of a family. Whenever it gets too big, I break it down, think of this person I met or that one." She also localizes the issues, showing that HIV/AIDS is a global epidemic, but illustrating the fact that each country faces different issues.

Ms. D'Adesky recounts her visits to many resource-poor regions of the world and exposes the political clout and specific social issues that prevent the scaling-up of HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. With such chapter subtitles as "Does the WHO want generics?" and "Vaccine Dreams". she poses the controversial question of why treatments and prevention are not available. Government leaders, specifically in the United States, place universal access to treatments second to economic interests, according to the author, who walks the fine line of political correctness by contextualizing statistical data of the pandemic and then providing evidence against former United States leaders. An HIV/AIDS activist group called ACT UP "launched its first protests against the high price of AZT--a former cancer drug approved for AIDS in March 1987--at a cost of $10,000 a year" she says. "Ronald Regan was in office then, and 20,000 Americans had already died of AIDS." In addition, she reveals the effects of the unavailability of HIV/AIDS prevention drugs, while placing them in a historic context.

Ms. D'Adesky is also the producer/director of the documentary, "Pills, Profit, Protest: Chronicle of the Global AIDS Movement", which captures AIDS activists at the front line in the battle against the profit-motivated political influence that hinders prevention and treatment of the disease. She attempts to show that people with a lot of money tend to hold funds back the most, quoting a prominent HIV/AIDS activist Paul Farmer: "You'll always find people looking for excuses not to act, and AIDS is no exception. I find they're usually the people holding the purse strings." The root of the problem is "big pharma", an organization of six leading pharmaceutical companies which, she says, seeks to use political influence to stop poor nations from producing low-cost generic drugs to treat HIV/AIDS, and whose objective is to achieve the highest profits at any cost. Ms. D'Adesky reports: "In 1999, over 40,000 babies were born with the virus, due to lack of access to AZT to prevent maternal transmission. GlaxoSmithKline was offering the drug at $50 a year per person at that time--out of reach for most citizens." A comparable generic drug could have prevented thousands from exposure to HIV.

Social and moral questions are at the centre of Moving Mountains. Ms. D'Adesky demystifies South Africa's status as the world's most HIV/AIDS prevalent area by explaining the history of apartheid--the political system intended to keep the white minority powerful and the black majority weak. She points to 40 years of apartheid rule as the source of thousands of HIV/AIDS-related deaths of black South Africans, who "were deliberately denied the fundamentals--basic education, health care, housing, jobs and services of every kind--for so long". She reveals the social and political issues blocking HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment in Haiti, the country of her own descent. Furthermore, she revisits the history of "perestroika"--the rapid economic restructuring of the Soviet Union after communism--to explain the current HIV/AIDS epidemic there.

Ms. D'Adesky chronicles other nations' past and present governmental systems, namely Cuba, India, Mexico, Morocco and Uganda. Brazil, according to her, could be one of the best models for a stabilized HIV/AIDS crisis. Although still a poor country plagued by poverty and violence, it has managed to produce and provide generic drugs to its citizens at no cost. Brazil ten years ago faced the same problems that much of the world is confronted today: gender inequality, stigma, discrimination and poverty. However, it has come a long way in tackling many issues and has slowed down an epidemic whose human toll was threatening to compromise the entire country.

Ms. D'Adesky celebrates activists from around the world for having pushed the HIV/AIDS epidemic into the international spotlight. The research for Moving Mountains also led to the establishment of an international women's HIV/AIDS organization, "Women's Equity in Access to Care and Treatment", based in San Francisco (United States) and Kigali (Rwanda), which helps women and children in poor regions to become empowered and have access to treatment. The author captures the spirit of HIV/AIDS activism worldwide, seeking to give a human face to the epidemic, and uncovers hidden truths about it, revealing them in order to enlighten and inspire others. The book is a must read for those who have a deep concern for the millions affected by the epidemic, as well as those who have little or no knowledge of the tremendous human suffering it brings.

REVIEWED BY AMY PONT