AUCT 140, Epidemics and AIDS, Fall 2003

AUCT 140, Epidemics and AIDS, Spring 2009

Section 18696/19364, Tuesday & Thursday 10:50–12:05/2:05–3:20 p.m.

All classes will be held in either Dana 309/Dana 421. Follow the color code.

Warning: This course requires 20 hours of community service. You cannot pass the course without completing the required hours. It is best to begin it as soon as possible. A list of possible sites is posted on Blackboard under Course Documents.

Attendance: Students who miss more than three classes, without a bonafide excuse and/or prior notification of me, will be administratively withdrawn from the course. There will be a sign-up sheet passed around in every class. Don't miss it; that is the official attendance record! If you did not sign it, you were absent.

Texts: There are three required books for purchase and additional materials on Blackboard:

Shilts - And the Band Played On

Williams - Opposing Viewpoints: Epidemics

Usdin – The No-Nonsense Guide to HIV/AIDS

Additional text materials and readings on Blackboard

Greatly expanded and footnoted versions of the material on my website (uhaweb.hartford.edu/bugl) will be posted on BlackBoard as pdf files. Please use these as printed materials instead of those on the website as they will be more compact with fewer pages and far more up-to-date. All announcements and assignments will be posted on Blackboard, so be sure to check it regularly—at least every day is not unreasonable.

Reading Assignments: Reading assignments should be completed prior to the next class. The readings listed below are referenced by the first letter of the author’s surname. References to Shilts are to "parts" and not chapters; parts are much longer.

From my web page, there are links to a select group of other related web pages. Throughout the semester, you should make a habit of consulting some of these sites for news and updates.

Tentative Class Schedule
Day	Date	Topic	Reading(s)
Thurs	01/22	Course Intro; AIDS Open Discussion
Tues	01/27	History of Epidemics and Plagues	U1
Thurs	01/29	Group Discussion Session, PLWA(?)	OV:1.1–1.6 S-II
Tues	02/03*	Epidemiology	Race and Medicine; U2
Thurs	02/05*	Group Discussion Session	OV:1.,8-III
Tues	02/10	Normal Cell
Thurs	02/12	Group Discussion Session
Tues	02/17	Microbes	S-IV, OV: 4.1, 4.2
Thurs	02/19	Group Discussion Section
Tues	02/24	Exam 1, February 24, 2009
Thurs	02/26	Host Defenses and Immunity	OV: 3.1–.6;
Tues	03/03	Group Discussion Session
Thurs	03/05	Retroviruses and HIV and Rise of HIV	OV: 2.1–2. 4, 2.7, 2.8 S-V; U3
Tues	03/10	Group Discussion Section
Thurs	03/12	Testing and Treatment	OV: 2.5, 2.6; S-VI
		Spring Break
Tues	03/24	Group Discussion Section	Poppers; U4
Thurs	03/26	Emerging Infectious Diseases	OV: 4.1–4.4
Tues	03/31	Group Discussion Section	AIDS and Drug Laws
Thurs	04/02	PLWA	tba
Tues	04/07	Exam 2, April 7, 2009
Thurs	04/09	AIDS-Legal Issues	HIV and Civil Rights
Tues	04/14	Group Discussion Session	S-VII
Thurs	04/16	Media and AIDS	S-VIII
Tues	04/21	AIDS Advertising Videos
Thurs	04/23	Society’s Response to AIDS
Tues	04/28	International Issues	U5
Thurs	04/30	Biological Warfare		DA Henderson Interview
Tues	05/05	Exam 3, May 5, 2009

Grades: Grading will be multifaceted. There will be three independent exams, (at least) ten (usually weekly) response papers, possibly quizzes on the readings (Shilts, Opposing Viewpoints, and No-Nonsense Guide to HIV/AIDS), and a triple entry (what you did, how it affected you, and how it related to the course) journal/paper of your required 20 hours of community service work/project[1]. Each exam will count 65%/3 = 21.67% of the grade; each response paper will count 1% of the grade; the lab and community service will count 25% of the grade. A passing grade of D is achieved with 62%. This is a lab course for four credits, so be sure you have registered for a lab section. There will an opportunity to improve your grade on each of the first two exams. There is no final exam, only three hour exams.

Response papers should be typed and either submitted in hard copy or emailed as attachments. The format of all written work must be 11-point type in any san serif font (such as Arial, Lucida Sans, Tahoma, or Verdana), space-and-a-half (not double space), with a one-inch margin all around [This is not the default in Word, so you will need to change it.]. Do not put two spaces after the end of a sentence! Your text-processor automatically adjusts that spacing for you. Use tabs for paragraph indents and not spaces. Do not skip a line after each paragraph. For response papers sent as the body of email message, enable word wrap—absolutely do not put a carriage return at the end of each line.

This syllabus follows these formatting rules.

Once any response paper on a topic is returned, no other submissions on that topic will be accepted. Each paper beyond the ten required will be used as 1% extra credit added to your final grade. In previous incarnations of this course, there have been about 13 or 14 response paper topics. That's a possibility of an extra 4% added to your final grade!

No amount of extra credit work can raise your grade into the A-range! The highest it can take you is a B+.

Overview

The subject of this course is science and society, with the emphasis on science. The science is absolutely cutting-edge. What you learn at the beginning of this semester is very likely to change by the end of the course, if not sooner. More has been learned about infectious diseases in the last 28 years than was known in all previous recorded history. That's not all; the treatments are changing from month-to-month and even week-to-week. This is your opportunity to see science in action—today, not a hundred, not fifty, and not even twenty years ago. The results will undoubtedly affect a great many people, some of whom you may now know or are yet to meet.

Course Goals

1. Develop an understanding of epidemics and their history, how we study them, how we respond to them, their effects on societies, and their political implications; the human cell; causative agents, symptoms, medical care for HIV disease and related opportunistic infections.

2. Learn how scientists think and science progresses on a very short-term basis.

3. Learn the most current facts about STDs and HIV/ AIDS, in particular.

4. Learn some of the basics of human biology and immunology.

5. Understand the pathophysiology of HIV/ AIDS and risk behaviors.

6. Learn our role in the AIDS epidemic.

7. Involve all of us in the AIDS epidemic.

8. Have each person teach others about the AIDS epidemic and know why education is critical to our future.

Other Fascinating Reading

· Burkett - The Gravest Show on Earth; a dated and cynical view of HIV/AIDS by an historian turned reporter.

· Garrett - The Coming Plague; older; an apocalyptic compendium; worth looking for.

· McNeil - Plagues and Peoples; the seminal work in the field.

· Miller, Engelberg, & Broad - Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War; interesting and moderately current, but take it with a grain of salt because Judith Miller is an unfiltered conduit for government propaganda.

· Peters & Olshaker - Virus Hunter: Thirty Years of Battling Hot Viruses around the World; description by one of the prime players, very personal.

· Preston - Devil in the Freezer; an interesting (and scary) update on smallpox.

· Rotello - Sexual Ecology; a gay male's charge to the gay community that has stirred some controversy. You may want to read it and enter the discussion.

· Stein – The Power of Plagues; well-written and moderately technical.

· Wills - Yellow Fever, Black Goddess: The Coevolution of People and Plagues; well written, and does not shy away from the technical details, some of which are left unexplained.

Who am I?: My name is Paul Bugl; my office is D 241 and my phone is (860.768).4406; my email address is bugl@hartford.edu; for those taking this course for credit, office hours are tentatively scheduled for MW 12:30–3:30 and by appointment. Stop by and chat or send me an email.