Aids And Accusations: Haiti And Geography Of Blame By Paul Farmer

In the book Aids and Accusations: Haiti and Geography of Blame, author Paul Farmer discussed the rise of AIDS in Haiti and the various accusations as to why it was occurring there. In addition to this, he also shows how racism became a factor due to the theories of the American media and the Center for Disease Control. Inthe introduction he points out that when the virus became more recognized in Haiti and the United States, “Haitian researchers claimed that North American physicians and scientists had erroneously painted Haiti as a source of the worldwide AIDS pandemic”(Farmer 5). This was believed to be due to tourism that occurred there and people having relationships with Haitian people. Soon,“the Haitian scholars asserted that such a hypothesis
It was believed by many in Do Kay that his illness was due to someone putting a curse on him due to jealousy. However, it was noted that even though he did not have many sexual activities, he was known for receiving “at least a dozen injections, usually of penicillin”(Farmer 66). This was ignored and other theories led to other people believing that the disease could be spread by voodoo spells and other means. This included “sharing clothes”(Farmer 112) and if someone were “to sit next to children from Kay”(Farmer 115-116) where the illness was becoming a problem. This was the first stage in the discrimination
These accusations were directed not just at homosexual men who were already believed to have the virus because of their sexual relationships,but also from Haitian immigrants. According to Sabatier, “Researchers proposed that AIDS began with an outbreak of African swine fever in Haitian pigs…Others suggested that a Haitian homosexual may have contracted the swine virus from eating undercooked pork and then passed it on to homosexual partners from the United States”(Farmer 224). This made Americans become very cautious of Haitian immigrants and made them not want to be around anyone who was Haitian in fear that they might contract the disease. One example of thiswas how a Haitian taxi driver in the United Statessaid “people would refuse to get in my cab when they discovered I was from Haiti”(Farmer 216). There were even racist statements such as “There were [sic] no AIDS in the USA until the illegal criminal Haitian dogs came”(Farmer