Biomed in \"Acting it Up:

Biomed

In "ACTing it UP: AIDS cures and lay expertise," Collins & Pinch first provide a background on the gay community in the United States. The civil rights movement offered gays the resources, wherewithal, and motivation to organize and become politically empowered. When the AIDS epidemic broke out severely in the gay community, the disease threatened to undermine the political activism that had thrived for more than a decade as homophobia blended seamlessly with fear about the new disease threat.

The authors explain the unique challenges of dealing with big pharma and other powerful biomedical organizations. During the initial outbreak of the epidemic, and the media attention garnered by celebrity deaths from AIDS, the gay community found itself playing a unique political role. The medical community needed pressure to develop vaccines, drugs, and any other treatment interventions. The gay community was instrumental in providing the political push towards making AIDS a priority. Even more importantly, the gay community assumed the role of raising awareness. Health education and public outreach helped to clarify what AIDS and HIV are; how the disease is transmitted; and what can be done about it.

Collins & Pinch address issues related to medical ethics, starting with a discussion related to the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects. When new and experimental drugs like AZT are being developed, it is difficult to create a control group not receiving the drug when treatment with that drug might actually save lives. When the drug is ready for sale, its costs may be out of reach of most sufferers. Or, patients were being used as guinea pigs. Essentially, people were dying because science was trying to help them. The AIDS epidemic brought to light the conflicts between politics, science, and business.

One of the most poignant sections of "ACTing it UP" is on the redefinition and renegotiation of the patient-doctor relationship. Referring to themselves no longer as patients but as "people with AIDS," those with the disease started to shun the hierarchies that had for so long plagued medical care. Doctors had for too long kept strict control over the information that defined their profession. The gay community would have no part of it; people with AIDS started to learn the jargon and the "language of biomedicine," (p. 137).