Korean and international AIDS activists who participated in a peaceful protest against the Free Trade Agreement and for access to AIDS treatment at the International Conference on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP) were shoved and dragged by the police while trying to prevent the arrest of AIDS lawyer Jang Seo-yeon. Two activists, including a staff person of the ICAAP Local Organizing Committee, were hospitalized. Below is the joint statement from Korean activists and supporters about the incident.
[NEWS] Microbicide Gel: A Major Breakthrough in AIDS Fight /科学报告
Microbicide gel: A major breakthrough in AIDS fight
In one of the most attention-grabbing
sessions of the conference, the Center for the AIDS Program of Research in
South Africa reported that a clinical study of 889 women has found that a microbicide
gel used before and after sex could reduce risk of HIV infection by nearly 40
percent. The findings are especially encouraging
as six previous microbicide trials have failed over the past fourteen years.
The self-applied gel could make it possible for women to reduce the risk of HIV
infection.
杀微生物凝胶：艾滋病战役中的主要突破
在其中一场引人注目的会议中，南非艾滋病研究项目中心报告道，通过对889名妇女进行临床研究，他们发现妇女在性活动前后使用一种杀微生物凝胶后，其感染艾滋病病毒的风险将降低40%。在经历过去14年来，
6次杀微生物剂研制的失败之后，这次的发现令人精神为之一振，这种可自主使用的凝胶使得降低妇女感染艾滋病的风险成为可能。
[COMMENTARY] Bill Easterly’s Burden
By Gregg Gonsalves
Yale University and the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition
Comments at
The Future of Development:
Human Rights and International Aid Beyond the Economic Crisis
Robert L. Bernstein International Human Rights Fellowship Symposium
April 8-9, 2010
Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights
Yale Law School, 127 Wall Street, New Haven, CT
* * *
Good afternoon. Greetings from up on Science Hill, where I just got out of a
class on evolutionary biology. Permit me to use one analogy today–only because it seems so apt. A new book by a fairly well-known philosopher named Jerry Fodor has just come out. It’s called What
Darwin Got Wrong. This isn’t some creationist tract. Dr. Fodor apparently believes in evolution, but he thinks Darwin erred by claiming natural selection is responsible for it. The book hasn’t been well-received among scientists–not because we have a vested interest in this 150-year-old theory, but because the evidence supports natural selection and Dr. Fodor’s description of it only remotely resembles the phenomenon.
[REPORT] Anhui’s Barefoot AIDS Doctors
By Annie Ye Ren
For the past four years, I have periodically worked with a Chinese grassroots HIV/AIDS
non-governmental organization (NGO) that serves children in Fuyang Prefecture,
Anhui Province. The Fuyang AIDS Orphan
Salvation Association (AOS) gives aid directly to local communities, addressing
local needs that are often overlooked or underfunded by large-scale government
projects.
[COMMENTARY] A Patent Pool: What Are the Risks?
Today and tomorrow, December 14-15, the executive board of UNITAID will vote on whether to move forward with plans for a patent pool. A patent pool is a consortium of companies that share a license to a particular product or technology. In this case, manufacturers of AIDS drugs would give a limited number of generic manufacturers the right to produce those drugs. Competition between the generic manufacturers would then drive down the price of drugs in countries where many people currently cannot afford AIDS drugs.
Controversy has roiled over the patent pool idea since some have suggested that middle-income countries should be excluded. A lot of those countries are in Asia; see this letter from APN+, the network of people living with HIV in Asia, which clearly lays out the issues.
