Why AIDS matters
With 100,000 dead or dying, Graham Hancock looks at the human and social costs.

AIDS and the nations of the South
Inadequate financial, technical and medical resources have allowed AIDS to spread rapidly in the Third World. Report by Enver Carim and Graham Hancock

Medical safari in Kenya
Reba Linden on how the epidemic affects one African country.
Profiles: Infected: Tom, At risk: Mary, Caring: Wanijiku

The plague mentality
Xenophobia, homophobia, mysticism, prejudice. AIDS has brought them to the surface. Charles Gregg traces our legacy of intolerance.
MYTH EXPLODERS: AIDS, an African disease; AIDS, a homosexual epidemic; AIDS and casual contact.

Better ways of living,
better ways of dying
Caring for and loving the sufferers in San Francisco and Toronto by Ed Kimble and Ronald Labonte.

AIDS - THE FACTS

Red in tooth and claw
Mark Powell looks at AIDS research - a boom industry.

Sex after AIDS
Ros Coward looks at how the AIDS crisis might change the balance between the sexes.

Simply. Safer sex
The only solution.

ACTION and Worth Reading on... AIDS

I'm guest editor of this issue. Two reasons for that. First, back in the 1970s, I was on the NI staff for three years - so it's relatively easy for me to slot back into the system for a month. Secondly, I've been studying AIDS closely for two years, and have written a book on the subject. So I have some useful research to draw on.

I don't recall exactly when - or why - I became interested in AIDS. Working as a journalist in Nairobi four years ago I remember a Ugandan colleague dying of the disease. But I confess his death had little impact on me. Back in England I must have read press accounts of the progress of the epidemic but, again, I don't remember being fascinated. I certainly forgot about it during 1984 when my mind was focussed on writing about the Ethiopian famine.

It must have been towards the end of January 1985, however, that I was having a conversation with my friend Enver Carim. While we were talking an item came on the radio about AIDS - how it was incurable, how the number of cases was doubling every six months. I remember saying that this disease was very scary and adding: 'maybe everyone's going to get it.' In those days AIDS was still thought of largely as a 'gay plague'. I know I'd never believed that. I just didn't see why an infection should confine itself to a particular lifestyle and it had stuck in my mind that the people in Africa getting AIDS weren't gay.

That afternoon I phoned my publisher and suggested a book on AIDS. He showed little interest but asked me to submit a written proposal anyway. I didn't. Another project came up that week (there isn't much money in authorship and I help maintain a family of six). However, Enver and I decided we would keep track of AIDS and began to build up a database - scientific papers, press clippings, anything we could get our hands on. In August, after agreeing to split the research and writing 50:50, we finally submitted a synopsis to Gollancz who this time bought the idea immediately. Rock Hudson had just died and AIDS was running as a cover story in Time and News week.

Researching my part of the book was never an unpleasant experience, despite the tragedy that AIDS represents. And, before you ask, I never did consider myself as a parasite making cash out of the suffering of people with AIDS (you should see my bank balance!). Most of what had been published on the disease up to then had either been of the shock-horror-probe variety in the tabloid press, or else in obscure medical treatises. There was a lot of confusion, bigotry and misunderstanding. I saw my role as that of interpreting the medical and scientific data in a comprehensible way and, more important, demythologizing the subject.

The bulk of my work was done in the US - in New York, Washington, Atlanta and San Francisco. I recorded 30 hours of interviews with scientists, action groups and people with AIDS. I began to understand the full horror of the disease and built up a tremendous respect for those who had it and those who were fighting it. Gay men - the American community hardest hit by AIDS - were forging a new ethic of love, care and commitment in response to this disease. They were confronting the problem square on without humbug or selfishness and, in so doing, were redefining the boundaries of courage. I came home to write my half of AIDS: The Deadly Epidemic feeling fired up to communicate what I'd learned.

I'm still fired up, and I hope this issue of NI reflects that. As every month goes by AIDS becomes more important. It's not a story that's eventually going to drop out of the headlines as the public loses interest. Neither will it be possible for any of us to define it as 'someone else's problem' for much longer. AIDS will touch us all.

Letters
Letter from Mawere
Update
Briefly
Endpiece: by John Medcalf
Reviews: including Prison Notebooks by A. Gramsci
Country profile: Bahrain

COVER PHOTO: Art Directors Photo Library
ONLINE MAG MAINTAINED BY SIMON LOFFLER