CBS' "60 Minutes" Interviews Former President Clinton on Efforts to Fight HIV/AIDS in China

CBS' "60 Minutes" on Sunday included an interview with former President Clinton during a visit to China's "Golden Triangle" -- a low-income, agricultural region near the borders of Vietnam and Myanmar -- on his ongoing work through the Clinton Foundation to fight the HIV/AIDS epidemic (Rather, "60 Minutes," CBS, 1/1). The foundation in September 2005 announced it will provide antiretroviral drugs at no cost to HIV-positive children in China. The foundation -- which has provided treatment for 200 HIV-positive children and plans to treat 2,000 more -- also is working with Chinese health authorities to obtain second-line antiretroviral drugs for adult patients who are resistant to first-line treatment. The foundation in September 2005 also launched an HIV/AIDS service fellowship, which aims to bridge the gap between treatment in rural and urban areas of China by training eight urban doctors, who then will work for eight months in Chinese provinces with high HIV prevalence rates. In addition to treating HIV/AIDS patients, the doctors will train county-level physicians (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 9/12/05). In the CBS interview, Clinton met an HIV-positive Chinese woman and said, "I want people to see her as a human being. And to see that there's nothing wrong with touching them, people with HIV and AIDS. There's nothing wrong with embracing them. And there's everything right with fighting for them to have a normal life." Clinton also discussed the prices charged by U.S. drug companies for HIV/AIDS medications, whether he could have done more to fight HIV/AIDS during his presidency and the monthly "tsunami-like death toll" from HIV/AIDS worldwide. The "60 Minutes" segment also includes comments from UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot ("60 Minutes," CBS, 1/1).

A transcript of the segment is available online.

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