This text tackles the cultural landscape upon which AIDS, often accompanied by poverty, drug addiction, and crime, proliferates on a global scale. The author layers stories of individuals and events to illustrate the paths of HIV infection and the effects of environment, government intervention, and social mores. Linking ordinary yet kindred lives in communities around the globe, Kane challenges the assumptions underlying the use of police and courts to solve health problems. The stories reveal the dynamics that determine how the policy decisions of white-collar health care professionals actually play out in real life. By focusing on life-changing social problms, the narratives highlight the contradictions between public health and criminal law. HIV has transformed social consciousness, from intimate touch to institutional outreach. The author argues that these changes are dwarfed by the United States’ refusal to stop the war on drugs, in effect misdirecting resources and awareness. This study combines empirical and interpretive methods in an attempt to recognize the extent to which coercive institutional practices are implicated in HIV transmission patterns. Kane attempts to show how the virus feeds on the politics of inequality and indifference, even as it exploits the human need for intimacy and release.