Guest: Daniel Halperin, Ph.D.

Scientists believe that the virus that causes AIDS jumped from chimpanzees to humans about a century ago. It had been confined to a small patch of southeastern Cameroon, and it might have stayed there had not Europeans come, ensuring the disease would spread as an accident of their efforts to exploit Africa’s resources. We’ll look at the role of colonialism in the spread of AIDS. Our guest will be medical anthropologist Daniel Halperin, co-author of the new book Tinderbox: How the West Sparked the AIDS Epidemic and How the World Can Finally Overcome It.