HIV/AIDS and security: fact, fiction and evidence—a report to UNAIDS |
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| Authors: | TONY BARNETT GWYN PRINS |
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| Institution: | Economic and Social Research Council Professorial Research Fellow at the Development Studies Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science. He is also Co-Director of the LSE Mackinder Centre for the Study of Long Wave Events at the LSE. He has been researching the impact of HIV/AIDS since 1986 and is the author (with Piers M. Blaikie) of AIDS in Africa: its present and future impact;(1992) and (with Alan Whiteside) of AIDS in the twenty-first century: disease and globalisation (2002, revised and updated edition forthcoming April 2006). Alliance Research Professor jointly at the London School of Economics and Political Science and at Columbia University, New York. He is also Director of the Mackinder Centre for the Study of Long Wave Events at the LSE. He has been researching questions on the social impact of disease in sub-Saharan Africa before the advent of AIDS, working on TB transmission from the South African gold mines in the 1970s. His article on 'AIDS and global security' appeared in International Affairs;in October 2004. |
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| Abstract: | The link between HIV/AIDS and 'security' is said by many to be well understood, particularly that between the movement and activities of uniformed services and the epidemic. There are strong opinions widely asserted. But recent research undertaken for UNAIDS by LSEAIDS (which brings together leading social scientists at the LSE to confront the social and economic implications of HIV/AIDS), reveals that this is not at all the case. The evidence base is patchy—strikingly so. It has been over-interpreted and even misinterpreted in the rush to respond to a perceived threat by asserting generalizations that do not stand up. In this article the arguments and some of the evidence are reviewed, as are the forces advocating a precipitate response based on poor evidence. The article describes the principles that should underlie an empirically more robust approach. |
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