Fiction that Matters

Helen Epstein is an influential journalist and regular contributor to one of the world’s most prestigious literary journals, the New York Review of Books (NYRB). It is therefore unsettling that she has written an article on the NYRB blog that contains serious errors about the South African HIV epidemic and the important prevention benefits of antiretroviral treatment (ART) (see here)…

…Epstein, perhaps unintentionally, undermines the importance of ART both for treatment and prevention in order to promote her favoured theory. She has done so based on a poor reading of the scientific literature and a mis-portrayal of South Africa. This is a country with a complex history and epidemic. She does both herself and her readers a disservice in misstating or ignoring South Africa’s progress against the HIV epidemic.