AIDS

Ah, the hypocrisy. How much money to fight AIDS? And what political maneuvers to prevent AIDS cures and treatments?

INDIA HAS JUST PASSED A LETHAL PATENT LAW that will end its ability to produce generic versions of AIDS-fighting drugs--a global tragedy, because India is the source of those cheap drugs for half of the HIV-positive of the impoverished countries of the world--including half of India's 5 million HIV-positive citizens who depend on them, as do 30% of the HIV-positive in Africa. What the New York Times story today on this development leaves out is why India took this step. It's a combination of blackmail by U.S.-based multinationals and by Washington; and bribery by the U.S. government, which has just designated India as a major recipient of part of the money (subject, of course, to the religious, no-condom restrictions imposed by the Republican Congress) from The Twit's cash-starved global AIDS fund. It's a pity the Times didn't run a story on all this before it happened--because everyone in the global AIDS fight knew it was coming. For example, the French daily l'Humanite, the Communist Party's paper, ran a thorough article outlining the what and the why back on February 26, and global AIDS activists have been organizing an appeal to India not to take this step for months. Too late now--watch the death rate from AIDS among the world's poor soar....
  Direland article