Pacific Standard Debut Cover

The AIDS Funding Dilemma

violence

Dr. Jerome Kabakyenga has just walked a pair of visitors through a pair of vividly different Ugandan hospital laboratories — one ultramodern, the other an outdated relic. In the first, highly trained technicians investigate blood samples using a battery of high-throughput computerized systems. The brightly lit, air-conditioned facility is spotless. In the second lab on Kabakyenga's tour, there's little equipment beyond a clutter of microscopes, a pair of old refrigerators and a few centrifuges. The technicians here depend on daylight from a set of dusty windows, one of which is cracked. As ... Read More

Playing Chicken With Antibiotic Resistance

Murray Opsteen has 18,000 chickens at his feet. He's standing very still, so as not to crush them with his size-12 boots. Although the chickens densely carpet the floor around him — so densely they have little room to move — they aren't making much noise. In fact, the primary sound in Opsteen's vast barn, known in the poultry industry as a raising shed, comes from half a dozen powerful electric fans pushing the shed's fetid air. Still, the air reeks, because the chickens are being raised atop their own excrement, a practice that hugely reduces cleaning costs. "They're birds," says ... Read More