preventatively or curatively, is completely beside the point. (Although generally an iconoclast, Pisani herself accepts a myth or two - for example, that withdrawal from heroin is a serious medical condition and that methadone is a treatment for the supposed illness of addiction. This, I am afraid, is sheer nonsense.)

And Pisani does not address a much larger question that ran through my mind as I read the book. Why on earth do the increasingly rich and technologically sophisticated countries of Asia need any aid whatsoever with their AIDS? Why does China, with by far the largest foreign reserves in the world, and capable of sending a man into space, need assistance in this matter? As Pisani says herself, AIDS epidemiology is not rocket science - unlike sending a man into space. I can't think of reasons, except - dare I say it? - those that have to do with individual careers.