How to Survive a Plague: The Story of How Activists and Scientists Tamed AIDS

by David France

One of Entertainment Weekly's Top 10 Nonfiction Books of the Decade

A definitive history of the successful battle to halt the AIDS epidemic, here is the incredible story of the grassroots activists whose work turned HIV from a mostly fatal infection to a manageable disease. Almost universally ignored, these men and women learned to become their own researchers, lobbyists, and drug smugglers, established their own newspapers and research journals, and went on to force reform in the nation’s disease-fighting agencies. From the creator of, and inspired by, the seminal documentary of the same name, How to Survive a Plague is an unparalleled insider’s account of a pivotal moment in the history of American civil rights.

• ISBN10: 0307745430
• ISBN13: 9780307745439
• Publish Date: 3 October 2017 (first published 29 November 2016)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Vintage
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 656
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780307745439

Reviews

[clementine]

David France was the perfect person to write this monumentally important book. A trained journalist who was involved in AIDS activism from the early days, he presents a meticulously-researched history that retains so much humanity and compassion. Though this book is peppered with heartbreaking moments, it's ultimately hopeful, an illustration of how much grassroots activism can achieve, the power marginalized people have to take control of their own fates. Such an engaging, wonderful book. Everybody should know this history.

[Heather]

This book tells the story of ACT UP. This was a group founded to pressure scientists, politicians, and drug companies to increase the number of drugs being investigated for possible treatment for AIDS.

One of the main problems in the beginning, besides a lack of funding, was government scientists' insistence on doing double-blind controlled studies. They weren't wrong from a science perspective. These trials have patients in two groups. One group gets the treatment and the other gets a placebo. Neither the patient or the doctor knows who is in each group. The problem was that people with AIDS were dying so quickly that being in a placebo group for a few months, especially if you were required to go off all other medication, was basically a death sentence. There are stories of trials in this book where all the placebo group died in the course of the trial.

Without these studies to cover them from liability no one was willing to go on record and recommend using drugs off label. Doctors in the field, especially if they didn't handle many AIDS cases, then didn't know that giving a common antibiotic decreased the chances of patients dying of opportunistic pneumonia, for example. This was the leading cause of death in AIDS patients. It was almost entirely preventable and no one would officially say so.

I don't remember hearing anything good about ACT UP at the time. I only knew of them from news coverage that was always negative because of their dramatic demonstrations. What they did to change the culture of drug companies and to humanize the drug trials is amazing.

This book is a long, slow read. It is very densely packed with names and actions and committee meetings. The author was a young, gay journalist reporting on AIDS in New York at the time. It is very focused on New York. Occasionally it talks about San Francisco but you could get the sense that except for occasional mentions of Africa, that AIDS was only a New York/California problem. It is also focused primarily on white gay men. This was one of the criticisms of the drug trials. They wouldn't enroll women, people of color, or drug users. Although ACT UP seemed to give equal representation to women, those women aren't discussed much in the book with a few exceptions.This review was originally posted on Based On A True Story