In the short, turbulent history of AIDS research and treatment, the boundaries between scientist insiders and lay outsiders have been crisscrossed to a degree never before seen in medical history. Steven Epstein's astute and readable investigation focuses on the critical question of 'how certainty is constructed or deconstructed', leading us through the views of medical researchers, activists, policy makers, and others to discover how knowledge about AIDS emerges out of what he calls 'credibility struggles'. Epstein shows the extent to which AIDS research has been a social and political phenomenon and how the AIDS movement has transformed biomedical research practices through its capacity to garner credibility by novel strategies. Epstein finds that non scientist AIDS activists have gained enough of a voice in the scientific world to shape NIH-sponsored research to a remarkable extent. Because of the blurring of roles and responsibilities, the production of biomedical knowledge about AIDS does not, he says, follow the pathways common to science; indeed, AIDS research can only be understood as a field that is unusually broad, public, and contested. He concludes by analyzing recent moves to democratize biomedicine, arguing that although AIDS activists have set the stage for new challenges to scientific authority, all social movements that seek to democratize expertise face unusual difficulties. Avoiding polemics and accusations, Epstein provides a benchmark account of the AIDS epidemic to date, one that will be as useful to activists, policy makers, and general readers as to sociologists, physicians, and scientists.

《求生意志》為巴西國家愛滋政策之民族誌研究，作者普林斯頓大學人類學教授João Biehl透過巴西政經結構的宏觀分析，以及微觀的田野觀察與相關當事人的個別訪談，深入探討在國家愛滋政策與醫護結構中，國際藥廠、政府單位、非政府組織、公衛專家、社運分子等所扮演的角色，以及不同社會階層的愛滋受害者不同的生存處境，特別是在受到國際讚譽的巴西國家愛滋政策中，仍有許多社會邊緣的人們──窮人、藥癮者、同性戀、遊民──持續遭受汙名，為了在不穩固的照護體制中取得愛滋藥物資源，他們必須打造新的主體；這些在Biehl筆下「被遺棄的愛滋患者的困境與獨特性」，透過攝影師Torben Eskerod鏡頭下令人難以忘懷的影像更加凸顯出來。
Biehl指出，一個國家的愛滋政策，是由地方、全國及全球各方勢力與利益競合互動後的產物，研究者在對此動態網絡中的政治、經濟、官方與民間各方的互動張力進行細緻的討論的同時，也要對全球化的愛滋藥物試驗中潛在的「風險傾銷」，以及醫藥化的情形如何影響公共衛生預算與各種照護概念持續進行評估。
「如果我們謹記著這些相互關聯的面向——積極主義與政治經濟、藥物與公共衛生、人口與個體、醫學與主體——我們便可以就緊急時刻中持續改變的政治文化與倫理，組織一個更有效的討論；《求生意志》一書，正好是這種討論的一部分。我描繪那些導致治理與個人特質的醫藥形式的軌跡，同時，我也嘗試打開空間，讓那些在官方資料、政策決策與報告中正在消失的人們得以現身。」（Bieh，2015，頁48-49）