The Wisdom Of Whores

The Age

Saturday August 9, 2008

Steven Carroll

The Wisdom of Whores

Elizabeth Pisani

Granta Books, $35

WHEN ELIZABETH PisanI describes her job to strangers, she says she does sex and drugs - without the rock'n'roll, professionally speaking. During the past 20 years she has, in fact, been at the front line of the battle against AIDS. After spending time as a journalist she took out a PhD in infectious disease epidemiology - sex and drugs are her field. Among other things, this is pretty vivid reportage on a deadly serious problem that takes the reader into the red-light districts of the world's sex industry, especially Asia and Indonesia where she talks to all kinds of sex workers to better understand how the disease spreads - hence the title. Since the mid-'90s she's worked in AIDS prevention for the World Bank, WHO and UNAIDS. She knows her stuff and her conclusion that it can be beaten rests upon the provision that epidemiology and politics stop working in isolation from each other and start working together.

© 2008 The Age

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