India’s sprawling railway network will from next week allow HIV-infected people to travel half-price, the Economic Times reports. Since it’s India, there’s red tape to go with the red ribbons — the discount is only for second class travel to and from approved HIV treatment centres and people “have to produce (a) certificate in prescribed [...]
A couple of weeks back, I wondered whether the WHO’s railing against the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was just sour grapes. Last week, The Economist concluded that the wine has indeed turned to vinegar.
One of WHO malaria overlord Arata Kochi’s complaints was that the Gates Foundation is becoming a monopoly, squeezing out discussion and [...]
After huddling late into the night, US politicians have come up with a compromise. They’ll spend more money on innnocent victims of AIDS, but none to protect those wicked people who sell sex for a living.
The US congress house of representatives House Committee on Foreign Affairs agreed to spend an astonishing US$ 50 billion of [...]
In an editorial in the Moscow Times, Daniel Kashnitsky argues that Russian businesses could see their edge in the international marketplace undermined by HIV. He cites a bunch of scary stats, intended to jolt business leaders out of their complacency. Russia has the highest number of HIV cases in Europe. (Well yes, but it also [...]
Cynical about Bono and his “shop-your-way-to-heaven” approach to AIDS? A report in The New York Times reminds us that for the people whose lives are being prolonged with money bought off the back off a red i-Pod, drugs count for more than sneering. Reporter Ron Dixon talks to the sneerers, too, including the folks [...]
As Think Progress and CREDO pointed out, George Bush shouldn’t have been quite so smug in his State of the Union address. They list some of the ways that US money is undermining progress against HIV. But I’m afraid they’ve missed some other gems that the administration has thrown up in the way of effective [...]
This week, over 15,000 people converged on the Thai capital Bangkok to chit chat about religion’s role in helping people with HIV, Thailand’s Nation newspaper reports. The paper quotes Asian Interfaith Network on HIV/AIDS chairperson Pramaha Boonchuay Doojai as saying that “People with HIV can spend their life in communities peacefully if religious organisation help [...]
Almost everyone agrees that we need to invest more in developing drugs that treat and cure the illnesses that beset poor people. Many of us disagree, though, with pharmaceutical companies when they whinge about “patent protection”. This translates as keeping prices high while Big Pharma recoups its investment in research and rewards its shareholders. The [...]
In an eminently sensible editorial, Daniel Halperin recently argued that the vast resources available for AIDS in the developing world, and especially in Africa, are threatening to crush other important priorities such as basic sanitation. This has prompted a prickly response from the Global AIDS Alliance. Somewhat predictably, the Global AIDS Alliance argues that [...]
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