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If you were in charge of World AIDS Day, what would you do to make it a more meaningful day?
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Carrie Broadus, Executive Director, Women Alive, Los Angeles, Calif.
I would hold nationally broadcast one-hour town hall meetings between policymakers, community stakeholders and health departments to discuss the impact of HIV and the role all of us play in combating the disease.
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Larry Bryant, Director of National Advocacy, Housing Works, Washington, D.C.
Get rid of it! [Laughs] I would get rid of World AIDS Day.
I understand the intent behind creating awareness days like World AIDS Day, Black AIDS Awareness Day, National Gay Men's Awareness Day. The reason World AIDS Day was created was that we within the HIV/AIDS community felt that there was not enough awareness throughout the general population regarding what the HIV epidemic was. But in creating these days, we've almost turned them into holidays where it's more celebratory kinds of activities that are just sealed off to those already involved in the HIV community.
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Across most communities -- whether you're in Washington, D.C., Houston or anywhere else -- the people who are usually a part of these World AIDS Day events or awareness day events are the "usual suspects." It's kind of a family party, so to speak.
What I want to put more attention on is: Beyond awareness, what can we do? How can we set up these days or these events as steps into action? There are very few calls to action that have an actual road map attached to them. We have some of our significant, visible HIV/AIDS leaders in this country who dust off their speech from last year and just change the numbers and change the population to say, "We need to do more." OK: We need to do what?
I think if we answer the "What do we need to do?" question and start thinking, What are we going to do on December 2, on January 3, on March 31?
We need to have a more complete plan in place when we have those venues, when we have those moments of speaking to the country or to the world. What can we do? How can we get more people involved?
We talk about the "sixth annual" this and "twelfth annual" that. Well, we want to start thinking about when we can have the last World AIDS Day, or at least start using World AIDS Day the way we do Pearl Harbor Day in the U.S., when we think about this horrible, tragic period in our history that happened such a long, long time ago. I'll be talking to my grandkids about how World AIDS Day commemorates these events that happened a long time ago -- not as something that signifies each year in looking forward to the next.
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George Burgess, Treatment Educator, Absolute Care, Atlanta, Ga.
I would push the message that in order for us to get rid of this disease, we have to look at the stigma that's attached to it and the discrimination that's going on globally.
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I think that the epidemic could have been slowed down or stopped if we would just get rid of all of our discriminations and allow people to live with this disease without any stigmas or prejudices -- that's what I would do.
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Gwendolyn Carter, Prevention Outreach Coordinator, SisterLove, Inc., Atlanta, Ga.
For World AIDS Day to be a more meaningful day, it should be a true holiday or a true calendar day. Just like for Valentine's Day everybody does something: gets a card, a piece of candy, something, on Valentine's Day, because that is the day for everyone to be loved.
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Then for Martin Luther King Day everyone takes a day off or does community service or something. But the big holidays, something is done on those days. I think for World AIDS Day, even if it's something like, if that's the one day that everybody and all the kids get HIV prevention messages, then that should be it. I think that it should be big and obscene, just like every other holiday that this country celebrates.
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Allan Clear, Executive Director, Harm Reduction Coalition, New York City
Up to 26 percent of people living with HIV/AIDS in the United States have spent time in the correctional system. I would release all prisoners serving sentences for drug possession [on World AIDS Day] and make it a day of celebration as families are reunited. Incarceration is not accidental nor are people biologically or racially predisposed to criminal behaviors. Our prisons are full due to the prosecution of the war on drugs.
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Natasha Davis, Ed.D., M.P.H., Clinical Instructor of Public Health, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pa.
World AIDS Day 2008 must be a day of celebration and liberation. It must also be a day to signal to the world that a new day is here.
The country as a whole is undergoing a shift of transformational power. We must respect and honor the leaders who came before us and who are courageous enough to pass on the baton and make way for new leadership.
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I am certain that we will see innovative ideas from individuals who have great foresight and are intellectually astute. World AIDS Day 2008 will represent opportunity and promise for individuals who are infected and affected by the disease. The theme should be "Now Is the Time."
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Martin Delaney, Longtime HIV/AIDS Activist; Founding Director, Project Inform, San Francisco, Calif.
I'd certainly ask for the cooperation of the media. In general the media has really lost interest in AIDS compared to previous years. They might give a two-minute spot or something on World AIDS Day and think they've done their job. Instead, I think it would be a time to really provide some in-depth reporting on the subject, both in the United States, where people seem to think the disease is conquered and the epidemic is over, and around the world, where the devastation is really unchecked, despite all the success we've had with starting treatment.
If I would change something, it would be that I'd bring the heads of the media in and negotiate with them, if possible, to really make this an important day for them as well as for the world.
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Dazón Dixon Diallo, M.P.H., Founder and President, SisterLove, Inc., Atlanta, Ga.
The way I would want to make it more meaningful would be to have annual activities that actually unite what people are doing around the world. There would be some level of simultaneous action, the same way we do with Arbor Day.
Everybody knows on Arbor Day what to do. That's to go out, plant trees, clean up the environment -- do something specific on that day. Right now, we get a theme but we don't have any particular list or a small set of activities that we could be doing globally to connect everybody and make it actually a world focus on AIDS for a day.
Right now, I think it's just the day that people observe however they do, if they do, in their own communities. It still remains fairly isolating.
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I think something that would be meaningful is, for example, we have National HIV Testing Day in the U.S. where everybody is focused on getting as many people tested in that one day as possible. Maybe we have a global HIV testing day. Maybe there's a global home-based care day where people are mobilizing to go and visit and help take care of people living with HIV who don't have someone to take care of them, or who could use other people in addition to who they already have.
We could have a global day of phone-calling all your friends and telling them information or encouraging them to go get tested. There are things that you can do locally but that you know others are doing at the same time. Sort of the same way, just this Saturday [November 15, 2008] -- because there are different time zones in one country even -- over five hours, people across this country all held demonstrations at the same time in support of "No" on Proposition 8 [which bans gay marriage in California]. Similarly, during the immigration protests [on May 1, 2006], there were simultaneous demonstrations going on.
I think that we could come up with a simultaneous action that people could be doing globally, similar to what you see happen on New Year's Day, when they show you all the fireworks from all over the world. We could do one global national condom demonstration, I don't know, but I think it should be some activity that everybody can do where they are within that day and have that shared around the world.
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Kenyon Farrow, Public Education Director, Queers for Economic Justice, New York City
I think one of the problems with World AIDS Day is that it tends to be just an apolitical day of remembrance. That is the only day that we have some coordinated international energy around HIV/AIDS. I think that we could use it to much more kind of a political effect.
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I think if I had some control over how everyone on the globe [laughs] spent or thought about World AIDS Day, I think it would be really to try to push to re-engage politically in the things we're failing on in terms of HIV/AIDS prevention and decreasing new infections and then keeping people healthier, longer. We just wear red ribbons and maybe go to a church service, and that's it. I generally would like to politicize World AIDS Day from being just a day of quiet remembrance.
I don't know whether it would be coordinated actions, whether you could coordinate international demonstrations, the way people did with the war in Iraq. That's one possibility. You could stage walkouts on World AIDS Day. There are a range of different public actions that one could take, but I think it has to look different from, again, just going to a service and wearing a red ribbon on December 1.
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Ingrid Floyd, Executive Director, Iris House, New York City
World AIDS Day is great in that I think it's the one day that completely brings global attention to HIV/AIDS and the fact that this is still an epidemic and that it's still ravaging communities.
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For World AIDS Day in the U.S., we have to make sure that there is more media attention to the HIV rates here in the United States. What tends to happen is that because it's World AIDS Day, a lot of focus is put on programs that are abroad and not enough attention is put on what is happening here with the communities that we are working with -- people in the U.S. So there's little attention on what's happening here in New York City, what's happening in Washington, D.C., what's happening in Puerto Rico, where there are alarming rates of HIV.
That attention then helps to create a focus for people around getting tested and trying to encourage other people to go out and get tested. It also would encourage more HIV-positive people to come out and to speak about HIV in order to reduce the stigma that exists around the disease.
If I were in charge of it, I would definitely make sure there is more media attention regarding what is happening right here in the United States. I would also make sure that we have people who are HIV positive come out and talk about living with the disease in order to try to break the silence, as well as to try to break the stigma that exists around HIV; and ensure that there is more focus on people going out to be tested for HIV and knowing their status.
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Paula Frew, Ph.D., M.P.H., Assistant Professor, Emory University School of Medicine and Rollins School of Public Health, Atlanta, Ga.
As someone who has worked in the local community for years, I would advocate for a multi-pronged approach to enhance the relevance and importance of World AIDS Day.
Nationally, the public is charged by the political opportunities that lie ahead -- it would be highly beneficial to engage President-elect Barack Obama. His words and actions have moved so many, so I would ask for a public service statement (and ideally, accompanying Internet and other visual media) in which he promotes a day of free national HIV testing and counseling for all persons.
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Obama introduced the Microbicide Development Act years ago and he is one of the few national figures that has advocated for HIV testing. While in Kenya in 2006, the Obamas promoted HIV testing by taking the test themselves. As we ride a new wave of civic engagement, it is the ideal time in this country for our president-elect to promote the importance of World AIDS Day and highlight what each individual can do about HIV/AIDS.
Regionally, the southern United States is hit hard with higher HIV prevalence than most of the U.S. What accounts for this? There are a number of factors, including lack of access to health care, stigma, poverty, homelessness and a myriad of other issues. Having done a number of research studies with leaders in the African-American community in the South, we found that to get people involved -- particularly those from African-American communities -- meant that we needed to mobilize the faith institutions.
One approach that we have taken at the Emory Hope Clinic is to engage the local African-American faith-based leadership through dialogue and education on HIV/AIDS. By bringing these dynamic individuals together and discussing the effect that HIV/AIDS has on local communities, our coalition of clergy leaders have developed new programs that target the very issues that have the greatest promise of reducing HIV incidence in the community.
Having considerable community influence, and talking candidly about HIV/AIDS, these faith leaders have become change agents for so many. Organizing such efforts, therefore, may open new levels of dialogue and understanding among clergy and their church members.
Finally, at the local level, I would organize a citywide communications campaign that incorporates cell phone messaging, webcasts and ongoing RSS feeds, 24-hour radio and satellite radio PSA [public service announcement] blitzes and television spots.
Because we live in a visual society, we would be remiss to let the opportunity go by for the broad impact that can be achieved through mass communication. With high rates among our young African-American MSM [men who have sex with men] in the Atlanta area, we clearly need to reach out in new ways with "ground up" messages developed by youth and young adults in the community.
With local "culture-centered" voices and representation in World AIDS Day communications, we would honor the perspectives and wisdom of all segments of our community in order to harness the spirit of the day and move towards much more meaningful action.
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Bambi Gaddist, Ph.D., Executive Director, South Carolina HIV/AIDS Council, Columbia, S.C.
- Focus on youth and the fact that we are losing the next generation.
- Create campaign that focuses on the role of the faith community in combating HIV/AIDS stigma.
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Bethsheba Johnson, Clinical Coordinator, Luck Care Center, Chicago, Ill.
When I think about what the president-elect did: He used new technologies. I thought, "Wow. What if we could use those to get the attention of our young people -- and our older people -- across America?"
Using things such as Facebook and MySpace and texting and, again, some public service announcements directed towards the youth on their T.V. stations, their radio stations. I think that developing a campaign that would target the youth using those media would be really great! I just think Obama was such a good organizer; I think some of his methods would be right on the money.
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William Johnson, M.D., Medical Director, Luck Care Center; President, Southside Health Association, Chicago, Ill.
We did this in Chicago on a small scale with some of the high schools here. Walgreens pharmacy actually sponsored this promotion with the high schools. But each high school through a local magazine that goes to high school students promoted a World AIDS Day event where students were given opportunities to come up with a poster, a photograph, or a written word, some kind of art form to speak on HIV and AIDS. It was very broad. They could do whatever they wanted to.
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They submitted their artwork to a committee, and the committee voted on it and we chose three people as grand prize winners and they each were awarded, I think, $2,000 dollars a piece to use whatever way they wanted to. There is a lot that could be done on a larger scale with high schools in [the] United States, probably on a regional basis, or even a national basis, starting at the beginning of the school year and then culminating on World AIDS Day where there's going to be a grand prize winner built around a promotion with some type of -- something with the arts for HIV.
I think right now World AIDS Day comes and goes, and it's lost a lot of its umph because people aren't dying in the way they were before. It's not as much on people's minds as it was. I think what this is something that could be on the news. I think it would create some type of a buzz. "Hey, you know, look at these kids. Look what they're doing. AIDS/HIV is still an important issue that we need to be working on and thinking about."
I mean, I know here it worked real well as far as getting these teenagers involved. That's the group that you have to be able to reach. That's the group that'll get infected at this point. We really need to be able to reach our teenagers and let them know what's going on, and help them with prevention.
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Freda Jones, Absolute Care, Atlanta, Ga.
If I were in charge of World AIDS Day, I would make it a more meaningful day by advertising it worldwide. I think I would get the media more involved instead of it being just a city thing. I don't see enough advertising on T.V. I don't see enough billboards. I don't see enough people doing footwork around World AIDS Day. I just see it within the community. So I would advertise it more worldwide.
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Mark King, Author and Longtime HIV/AIDS Activist, Atlanta, Ga.
I'm really stumped by this question because World AIDS Day has become meaningless in recent years.
The fact that World AIDS Day is meaningless these days is a real reflection of how the sense of urgency has left the AIDS arena. We need someone to bring a sense of urgency back to that day -- to stop it from being some sort of commercial day of just throwing dark blankets over art in art galleries and return it to a day of vital urgency. How that will be done I don't know.
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As a gay man, I know that the gay community responded to AIDS when we were attending funerals every weekend for our loved ones. Those funerals are still going on. Maybe not in our community, but in other communities -- in African-American communities, where people are sometimes buried with no mention of how they died.
If anything, we should return to a time when World AIDS Day is about death and dying. As extreme as that may sound, that is a message that resonated with gay men in the 1980s and may help resonate AIDS among communities who are similarly affected now.
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Marilyn A. Moering, M.P.H., Executive Director, Building Bridges, Inc., Jackson, Miss.
It wouldn't be a World AIDS Day, necessarily. We need to talk about HIV/AIDS every day! People need to be reminded often about HIV in our communities. Relegating it to one day seems to make it less important.
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Nyrobi Moss, Sexual Health Educator and Trainer, SisterLove, Inc., Atlanta, Ga.
I would target policymakers and lawmakers and people that are unaware that HIV is such a problem in communities of color and the communities that are more affected by the virus.
The one thing that I find is that the higher up you go, people start to separate and distance themselves from World AIDS Day. They say, "Oh yeah, OK, millions of people are dying with this thing." But a lot of people do not have a personal, vested interest in the things that are going on with HIV, with prevention, with people that have HIV.
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What's a way that you might engage the policymakers and lawmakers?
Are we talking magical or practical? [Laughs]
How about a little bit of both?
The magical side of it is to switch somebody and let somebody that's in a position of power, a position of policymaking, a position of being able to affect change, trade places for a day with somebody else that was being affected by HIV, that was of low income, that had financial issues and/or challenges. That's my magical answer to it.
But the more practical aspect of it is different programs -- for instance, we [at my organization] do radio shows, we go out and we do health education and public information sessions. Just doing those types of sessions where it is at a higher level. Because we're on college campuses, we're in the community.
One of the most interesting things we do is a thing called a risk assessment where everybody has to look at their own personal risk and figure when and where they enter with the virus.
I think that having demonstrations and displays and things that reach larger communities, whether it's a concert, whether it is having a dinner party, where the purpose is to talk about what all of our risk involvement and/or commitment to HIV is.
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Kenny Porter, AIDS Housing Program Manager, Atlanta, Ga.
First, I would make it all-inclusive, which means that I would probably make it almost like the United Nations, where everyone would have a stake and involvement in it -- everyone can get some type of meaning and understanding of HIV/AIDS and the impact that it has on the community across the board, not just the person who is infected. |
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Loreen Willenberg, Executive Director, Zephyr Foundation, Sacramento, Calif.
As I approach my 16th World AIDS Day, I can't tell you when it was actually authorized to be a day, a World AIDS Day. I thought about all the many events that I've gone to myself. Even those years when I was actually living undisclosed, those years that I wasn't able to go to an organized event, I really felt that asking every World AIDS Day event organizer in the country to distribute and recite the 1983 Denver Principles would be a fabulous thing to do.
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The Denver Principles, if people are not familiar, were written in 1983. Essentially, the mission of the document was to say, "We condemn attempts to label us as 'victims,' a term which implies defeat, and we are only occasionally 'patients,' a term which implies passivity, helplessness, and dependence upon the care of others. We are 'People With AIDS.'"
It was really a fabulous document with their recommendations for all people in support of our human rights and dignity as American citizens, number one, and then, number two, as people infected with a virus called HIV.
It encourages all of us to become involved in policy in whatever capacity we are able to do. It also outlines five rights of people with HIV/AIDS and, essentially, is a call to the return to compassion and dignity and respect for all people living with the virus.
I think that it serves as a reminder that complacency has probably overtaken us in the past eight years as we have felt that our government is not a supportive one in many different arenas. It would serve as reminder, then, on World AIDS Day that we are very deserving of our civil rights and dignity and respect, Olivia. So that's what I would do.
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Jorge Zepeda, Manager of Latino Programs, San Francisco AIDS Foundation, San Francisco, Calif.
Grassroots actions! One of the things I learned from Obama's presidential campaign is the importance of grassroots community mobilizing. We need to change World AIDS Day into a grassroots event.
Talk to your family. Talk to your friends. Talk to your loved ones. Talk to your colleagues or coworkers or classmates: about what HIV is, how you can prevent HIV, how to care for people living with HIV. I would like to do that if I were in charge of World AIDS Day. I would promote grassroots community mobilizing so that everybody would talk to others about HIV prevention as well as care for people living with HIV.
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Media attention is important for World AIDS Day. [I would encourage] talk in the media about how homophobia is a factor that contributes to increases in HIV cases in many places, as is domestic violence, definitely, and also anti-immigrant sentiment against people who come to this country to work.
[We'd need to talk about] the context of why we're still dealing with HIV in this country and in the world: poverty and disparity in access to health services and information on health.
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Comment by: Jeffri
(RGV Texas)
Sat., Jan. 10, 2009 at 3:47 pm EST
I would find a way to include everyone. It seems that it has been limited to the Gay or African American, woman, & latino. What about the straight guy. It is difficult to get any support or advise for the straight white guy. It sometimes feels as if i'm all alone.
Comment by: Ricky
(San Antonio, TX )
Thu., Nov. 27, 2008 at 1:39 am EST
I would like to see a million PWA march on Washington to emphasis that people who are living with HIV/AIDS even though we are living longer, the quality of that life is still not much of an improvement. We are encouraged to take HAART cocktails to keep us alive but at what cost to our quality of life? Some of us, like myself, find it hard to work. When are we going to go back to the reality of HIV/AIDS?
Comment by: Linda
(Michigan)
Wed., Nov. 26, 2008 at 12:43 am EST
Education is so important. I had to do my own research. Several doctors did not test me when I asked for testing, and had precursors to testing. So I am not sure how long I've been positive. When my virus did not progress, the information got more obscure. Everything is MEDS!!! Well I am not on meds, and I have to wonder if my above average diet of raw and natural foods is the KEY. Eliminating chemicals and irritants in your environment. Bug sprays, oven cleaners, paint fumes .. .anything toxic is very bad for us Positives. Proper nutrition is a key factor in health. It seems more information on this should be presented. Most people take what their doctor says as gospel. What if he says little?
Comment by: Oluwatoyin Salau
(Lagos Nigeria)
Mon., Nov. 24, 2008 at 6:40 pm EST
World AIDS DAY is quite significant as a reminder of the need to sustain and strengthen our collective battle against the scourge of our time. To commemorate this year's World AIDS day my organization HOPE worldwide Nigeria in Partnership with MTN-Foundation in conjunction with Ikeja Local Action Committee on AIDS would bring together the stakeholders, policy makers and youths to assess the impact of the interventions so far and ways to sustain the battle against the spread of HIV/AIDS in the community today, tomorrow and in the years to come, especially in the sub-Saharan Africa. One of the major problem of HIV/AIDS is the issue of stigma and discrimination in the society and this particular fundamental problem has affected the productivity of people living with the virus.
Most of are either sacked from their jobs or denied outright employment on the basis of their status. My focus is to support actions that will make the government of Nigeria make it a criminal offense for any employers of labor, landlords, medical personnel, teachers and community leaders to engage in the victimization of people living with HIV/AIDS.
Another area is to continue to encourage organizations like MTN Nigeria, a GSM communication company with a foundation that is funding interventions through VCT, PMTCT, the foundation remaining the only organization that provides free breast milk substitute to over 1000 children delivered of HIV positive mother in the last 3 years. It has successfully funded the training and equipping of about 240 clients in skills such as tailoring and designing, soap making, hair dressing. Another 240 sets of people are currently undergoing training in tailoring and designs, soap making, hair dressing, milling, commercial telephone operators and tie dye.
As the project officer for the Lagos site my aim is to further strengthen linkages with other organizations to further enhance collaboration and reduce duplication of service rendered to the community, to reduce wastage and boost service delivery.
Comment by: jsjacksonwny@hotmail.com
(San Deigo)
Sun., Nov. 23, 2008 at 1:09 pm EST
I would stand up and DEMAND a cure. I would remind everyone how pathetic it is that after 30 years we are still decades away from eradicating this virus. I would also initiate a witch hunt on the pharmaceutical companies that profit off of this disease. Keeping people dependant on their drugs is much more profitable than curing the disease. Where is the incentive to even pretend to look for a cure? I would demand that the world's governments make it illegal to profit off of life sustaining drugs. I would demand that pharmaceutical companies redirect all revenue into research for a cure. Living with the side effects of our pharmaceutical regimes is not an option that we should be content with. Our complacency needs to end now!
Comment by: Donna Hamilton, Females Unveiling the Secret !!
(Toledo, Ohio)
Thu., Nov. 20, 2008 at 2:15 pm EST
World Aids Day should be a day when we all -- affected, infected, black, white, old and young, male, female, rich and poor -- come together to continue to educate, support and show compassion for each other. Change will only happen when we change first. This day should be a great conference, that anyone wanting to be there, would not be turned away from merely for $$$. Saving lives is priceless!
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