Perspectives on AIDS in Africa

July 14, 2004 9:44 AM

As the world meets in Bangkok to discuss responses to the HIV/AIDS epidemic (wow, even Richard Gere thinks it's important!), these very effective public service ads (1, 2, 3 all .mpg files) from the Stephen Lewis Foundation bring the epidemic down (or up) to an emotional level.
posted by stonerose (2 comments total)

The US is really getting its ass handed to it at this conference, incidentally. My favorite report is this one from the Guardian

"Randall Tobias ... was never going to get a smooth ride. We should really give him credit for sticking his head into the hornet's nest at all ... Tobias also has a slight image problem. He was chief executive of the huge US drug company Eli Lilly before his retirement...you can imagine how a former pharmaceutical fat cat goes down at a conference where the Indian generic companies that ripped-off the big name companies to produce cheap, lifesaving Aids drugs are heroes and saints."

PEPFAR, the US's emergency plan for AIDS includes so much moralizing-as-medicine talk -- such as preaching abstinence as if it works [which it doesn't, not tactically anyhow] and refusing to allow developing countries to manufacture their own AIDS drugs -- that it's worse than ineffective. Abstinence first, brand name drugs only, questioning the efficiency of condom use in preventing the spread of AIDS, it's just sad. That second clip "diagnosis" was particularly jarring and poignant. Thanks for the links.
posted by jessamyn at 1:05 PM on July 14, 2004

Key US scientists missing from the increasingly political International AIDS Conference
posted by homunculus at 3:11 AM on July 15, 2004