Upstream | December 01, 2010 | 66 comments

World AIDS Day

source: http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/12/01/aids.day.figures/index.html?hpt=C2

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EthicalVegan
World AIDS Day comes amid progress, concern

By the CNN WIre Staff
December 1, 2010 2:32 a.m. EST


A giant red ribbon hangs on the White House for observance of World AIDS Day.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

* The estimated number of children with HIV/AIDS in 11 Asian countries increases 46 percent
* The UN says the number of new HIV infections has dropped 20 percent in the past decade
* But the number of new HIV infections outpaces the number of people starting treatment




(CNN) -- As the global community commemorates World AIDS Day on Wednesday, international health organizations report both promising and sobering trends.

While the United Nations says new HIV infections have declined by almost 20 percent worldwide over the past decade, the estimated number of children living with HIV or AIDS in 11 Asian countries has increased by 46 percent between 2001 and 2009, the World Health Organization's South-East Asia office said Wednesday.

"In 2001, an estimated 89,000 children were living with HIV/AIDS," said Vismita Gupta-Smith, public information and advocacy officer for WHO's regional office in New Delhi, India. "In 2009, there are an estimated 130,000 children living with HIV infection," including recent HIV infection, advanced HIV infection and AIDS.

The 11 countries in the region are Bangladesh, Bhutan, North Korea, India, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Timor-Liste.

But a report by a United Nations program released last month shows some encouraging news, including drops in AIDS-related deaths and new HIV cases.

Data from the 2010 global report by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) shows that an estimated 2.6 million people became newly infected with HIV, compared with the estimated 3.1 million people infected in 1999.

Also in 2009, approximately 1.8 million people died from AIDS-related illnesses, compared with the roughly 2.1 million in 2004, according to UNAIDS.

Among young people in 15 of the most severely affected countries, the rate of new HIV infections has fallen by more than 25 percent, led by young people adopting safer sexual practices, according to UNAIDS.

"We are breaking the trajectory of the AIDS epidemic with bold actions and smart choices," said Michel Sidibe, executive director of UNAIDS. "Investments in the AIDS response are paying off, but gains are fragile -- the challenge now is how we can all work to accelerate progress."

But not all the news from the UNAIDS report, which covered 182 countries, was good.

"Even though the number of new HIV infections is decreasing, there are two new HIV infections for every one person starting HIV treatment," UNAIDS said.

Sub-Saharan Africa continues to be the region most affected by the epidemic, with 69 percent of all new HIV infections, according to UNAIDS.

In seven countries, mostly in eastern Europe and central Asia, new HIV infection rates have increased by 25 percent.

UNAIDS said in the Asia-Pacific region, 90 percent of countries have laws that obstruct the rights of people living with HIV.

Despite the lower numbers of new HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths, UNAIDS said the demand for resources is surpassing the supply.

"Donor governments' disbursements for the AIDS response in 2009 stood at $7.6 billion, lower than the $7.7 billion available in 2008," UNAIDS said. "Declines in international investments will affect low-income countries the most -- nearly 90 percent rely on international funding for their AIDS programs."
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66 comments // World AIDS Day

  • ayipis
    • -1
      ayipis  

    • its funny..but despite of all the efforts and MONEY we poured into this shit..it gets worse...

      maybe getting rid of AIDS needs more than fucking wearing a red ribbon or paying bono to do a song..

      wake up people..if you want to save your asses

    • 1 year ago
  • GLOBALPOLITICAL
  • PzLuvHappeniz
  • ayipis
    • -2
      ayipis  

    • what ethicalvegan forgot to tell you guys is that..dealing with AIDS requires more than wearing a red ribbon or "listening to Bono sing his songs for money"

      .........if we need to hinder this..WE NEED TO SACRIFICE....keep proper hygiene, wear a fucking condom..and get rid of things that stands in the way of proper cure or protocols to rid this...(may it be religion..or some dictator..or specially those vampires that divert attention away from the issue .example efforts like Live8 or shit like that)

      because if we are going to follow this bleeding heart liberal approach..we would see each other here again in 10 years in a more dire situation JUST LIKE POVERTY IN AFRICA..

    • 1 year ago
  • EthicalVegan
  • Tayllerand
    • 0
      Tayllerand  

    • Are they still telling people that the AIDS virus happened because a black guy from Africa had sex with a monkey, and the monkey gave it to him . Problably we should check the making of the polio vaccines which are made with the kidney tissue of monkeys , do you see the connection?

    • 1 year ago
  • MizPiz
  • ayipis
  • pukemnukem
    • +1
      pukemnukem  
    • Tayllerand:

      The actual strain that occurred in in the trial sites (locations in Africa where the polio vaccine trials were) were of group M. The current, most common strain in the world today, is subtype B. This means those two forms of the virus are not directly related. Also, Subtype B came through Haiti and into the US, not directly from Africa. Also, it wasn't monkeys, chimpanzees were used...two different things. Some of the monkeys were later found to have a virus...which wasn't Simian HIV or anything close to it. Also, every sample that was saved from the trials have all tested negative for HIV.

      The truly sad thing is right now, in parts of Nigeria, Polio is making a comeback because of the misinformation about the OPV theory. The idea was worth considering, and its been heavily investigated, but every bit of testing and analysis has shown it not to be true. Because of this, people are afraid of even taking the oral polio vaccine, which in no way is related to chimpanzees or HIV.

      I don't think people realize just how utterly devastating that disease was and the threat it still is.

    • 1 year ago
  • littlwarrior
  • rodstradamus
  • GLOBALPOLITICAL
    • +1
      GLOBALPOLITICAL  
    • rodstradamus:

      Our corrupt government, who employs many eugenicists seeking to cull the population, could care less about a cure for AIDS, CANCER, or any other illness. The FDA is a corrupt institution which should be disbanded immediately. FDA is a revolving door for BigPharm, Agribusiness, etc.

    • 1 year ago
  • b_reilly
  • bike10
  • EthicalVegan
    • 0
      EthicalVegan  
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    • http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/us/politics/01aids.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=...

      PART ONE...

      The New York Times...

      College Campuses Are Producing a New Style of AIDS Activist

      By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
      Published: November 30, 2010

      NEW HAVEN — David Carel was never a rabble-rouser. But amid the clutter of his dorm room at Yale University, Mr. Carel, baby-faced and slight-shouldered at 19, keeps evidence of his new life as an AIDS activist: posters, banners and the flier demanding “$50 bn for Global AIDS” that he concealed in his fleece jacket one Saturday in late October when, heart pounding, he sneaked past security into a Democratic campaign rally in Bridgeport.

      Photo: Mr. Carel, 19, Cathy Le, 26, and Sheila Enamandram, 19, on Sunday prepared for Wednesday’s World AIDS Day observance.

      After David Carel, a Yale student, heckled President Obama in October, his parents told him they wished he would be “more respectful.”

      There, Mr. Carel did something he “never would have imagined”: he heckled the president of the United States.

      Cameron Nutt, a medical anthropology student at Dartmouth, says he backs President Obama “100 percent.” But, incensed over the president’s “failure to remain true” to a campaign promise to spend $50 billion over five years fighting the AIDS epidemic overseas, Mr. Nutt disrupted Mr. Obama this fall at a Boston rally. His co-protesters included Luke Messac, a University of Pennsylvania medical student and a field organizer for Mr. Obama’s presidential campaign, and Krishna Prabhu, a Harvard University senior who caucused for Mr. Obama in Iowa in 2008 — and rescheduled his final exam in global health to attend the president’s inauguration.

      “The promise has not been fulfilled,” Mr. Prabhu said, sounding more disappointed than angry.

      Roughly a quarter-century after gay men rose up to demand better access to H.I.V. medicines, a new breed of AIDS advocate is growing up on college campuses. Unlike the first generation of patient-activists, this latest crop is composed of budding public health scholars. They are mostly heterosexual. Rare is the one who has lost friends or family members to the disease. Rather, studying under some of the world’s most prominent health intellectuals, they have witnessed the epidemic’s toll during summers or semesters abroad, in AIDS-ravaged nations like Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.

      College activism, and AIDS activism in particular, is nothing new. On Wednesday, World AIDS Day, students across the nation will participate in speeches, fund-raisers and the like. But a loose-knit band of about two dozen Ivy Leaguers, mostly from Harvard and Yale, is using more confrontational tactics, as well as some high-powered connections, to wangle encounters with top White House officials in a determined, and seemingly successful, effort to get under Mr. Obama’s skin.

      Their protests — which have drawn a sharp rebuke from the president (not to mention some disapproving parents) — come as many in the AIDS advocacy community are wondering aloud whether Mr. Obama is as devoted to their cause as his immediate predecessor, George W. Bush. In 2003, Mr. Bush began vastly increasing spending on lifesaving antiretroviral medicines for AIDS patients in impoverished nations; the number receiving the drugs has shot up from 50,000 to more than five million today. Yet the World Health Organization says as many as 10 million lack needed therapy.

      While spending on global AIDS has gone up on Mr. Obama’s watch, and the United States remains the world’s largest contributor to such programs, independent analysts say that the rate of increase has slowed significantly and that it will be difficult for the president to keep his $50 billion pledge — or even meet a lesser goal, set in 2008 by Congress, of $48 billion for AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria by 2013. The task may grow even harder under a new Congress, with the incoming House Republican majority intent on cutting spending and Tea Party-backed Republicans in both chambers expressing skepticism about all types of foreign aid.

    • 1 year ago
  • EthicalVegan
    • 0
      EthicalVegan  
    • EthicalVegan:

      CONTINUED...

      PART TWO...

      Still, armed with data from Health Gap, an AIDS advocacy group, the students are determined to hold Mr. Obama to his word. When Ezekiel Emanuel, a bioethicist and health adviser to the president (and brother of the former White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel) spoke at Yale two weeks ago, he wound up sparring with Mr. Carel at a fruit-and-cereal breakfast at the campus Hillel House, a meal arranged by a fellow Yale student, Dr. Emanuel’s daughter. Later that day, Mr. Carel led a demonstration outside Dr. Emanuel’s talk, which ended with students chanting at the adviser as they followed him down the street.

      When Eric Goosby, Mr. Obama’s global AIDS coordinator, traveled to Boston in November for a panel discussion with Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, he was collared at a cocktail party by Mr. Prabhu, the Harvard senior. Also on the panel was Mr. Prabhu’s professor, Dr. Paul E. Farmer, founder of the global nonprofit Partners in Health.

      “These students are my retirement plan,” Dr. Farmer said in a telephone interview from Haiti, where he is treating cholera patients. “A lot of them are doing much more than going to protests; they’re writing papers and articles, they’re doing graduate studies.”

      Mr. Messac, the University of Pennsylvania medical student, explored the origins of Mr. Bush’s AIDS program in a 120-page paper, “Lazarus at America’s Doorstep,” for his Harvard undergraduate thesis. Mr. Carel, who spent last summer working at a hospital in the rural South African village of Tugela Ferry, now studies Zulu and persuaded a visiting professor from South Africa to let him take her upper-level course on “the political economy of AIDS.” (He had to skip Zulu class for the Emanuel protest; he said his professor understood.)

      The students have also befriended a longtime veteran of the AIDS wars, Gregg Gonsalves, who at 47 is completing his undergraduate degree in evolutionary biology on a full scholarship at Yale. Mr. Gonsalves often lectures public-health classes on what he calls “ancient history” — the work of groups like Act Up in the 1990s.

      “Theirs is not a first-person commitment, in the sense that none of them is living with H.I.V.,” Mr. Gonsalves said of the new AIDS protesters. “It’s all based out of a sense of solidarity and social justice. I used to wonder where the next generation would come from. They’re here.”

      Inside the White House, Dr. Emanuel, for one, is not impressed. He says the students are serving up tired arguments about dollar amounts that ignore the Obama administration’s emphasis on spending money more efficiently and offering services, like circumcision, that can reduce the spread of H.I.V. While Mr. Bush emphasized AIDS and malaria, Mr. Obama is promoting a six-year, $63 billion “global health initiative” that seeks to address a range of diseases, with emphasis on women and children.

      “To be honest, and this is no put-down to the sincerity of the students, I didn’t hear a new argument that I haven’t heard for months,” Dr. Emanuel said in an interview after his breakfast with Mr. Carel. “I’ve not seen a blog post on the number of people we have circumcised, or the number of mothers we treat in maternal-child health. Those are real performance measures.”

      Dr. Emanuel would not discuss any conversations with the president about the students, but Mr. Obama’s reaction when he was disrupted in October at the rally in Bridgeport made clear he was irked. “You’ve been appearing at every rally we’ve been doing,” the president complained, telling them it was not “a useful strategy.”

      The students were pleased that he addressed them directly, but their heckling prompted even some fellow AIDS activists to take issue with their tactics. Regan Hofmann, editor in chief of Poz, a magazine for people living with or affected by H.I.V., questioned the wisdom of disrupting the president on the eve of a critical election for Democrats.

      Mr. Carel says he and his fellow protesters thought long and hard about that. It was his first demonstration; his parents told him they wished he would be “more respectful.” His friends were shocked. Still, he says it was worth it.

      “There are very few ways we could have any access to him,” he explained. “This was a way to get Obama’s ear.”

    • 1 year ago
  • GLOBALPOLITICAL
  • EthicalVegan
  • EthicalVegan
    • 0
      EthicalVegan  
    • Image

    • http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/pass-the-hairspray-fight-aids/?...

      The New York Times...

      November 30, 2010, 1:57 pm
      Pass the Hairspray, Fight AIDS
      By STUART ELLIOTT

      Remember the old slogan for Clairol hair coloring, “Only her hairdresser knows for sure”? A campaign to help fight AIDS, which is to get under way on Tuesday, is based on the idea of hairdressers imparting to customers their knowledge of preventing the spread of H.I.V., which causes AIDS.
      DESCRIPTIONA logo for Hairdressers Against AIDS.

      Hairdressers Against AIDS is being introduced in the United States to coincide with World AIDS Day on Wednesday. The theme of the campaign is “Use your voice, use your power, for a beautiful world without AIDS.”

      The campaign, which is already active in more than two dozen countries, is developed and financed by the L’Oréal Foundation; estimates are that $1 million will be spent on the campaign in the United States in its first year.

      The foundation developed the campaign in conjunction with organizations that include Unesco and the Global Business Coalition on H.I.V./AIDS.

      As part of the campaign, kits about H.I.V. and AIDS will be provided to 500,000 hair stylists and salons that are served by the L’Oréal professional products division. The materials inside the kits — brochures, decals, leaflets and the like — will be focused on three messages: “Reduce your risk,” “Get tested” and “Talk about H.I.V.”

      More information, including video clips, can be found on the campaign’s Web site.

      There are more than 950,000 hairdressers in this country, said Christine Schuster, senior vice president of worldwide education for the Redken and PureOlogy lines at L’Oréal in New York, and each one “can see from 10 to 12 clients a day.”

      “The relationship a man or woman has with a hairdresser can be an intimate, personal, relationship,” she added, one in which advice is freely imparted — and frequently followed.

      The campaign also has a presence in social media like Facebook.

      To promote the campaign, activities are scheduled in Manhattan on Wednesday that include stationing 500 hairdressers from salons around the country inside video booths and having them help passersby create their own video clips about preventing H.I.V.

      Videos featuring celebrities like Rosanna Arquette and Pete Wentz are to be shown on the Nasdaq and Reuters Buildings in Times Square.

      The L’Oréal Foundation campaign is one of many that are scheduled for Wednesday. Others include the various MTV properties — including MTV, MTV2, mtvU and the MTV profiles on Facebook and Twitter — being colored red for the day to deliver the message “Get yourself tested.”

      And the New York office of TBWA/Chiat/Day, part of the TBWA Worldwide unit of the Omnicom Group, is creating the much-publicized “Digital Death” campaign, which features prominent figures in social media like Kim Kardashian, Lady Gaga and Ryan Seacrest promising to stay away from their usual online haunts until $1 million is donated for the “Buy Life” initiative from Keep a Child Alive.

    • 1 year ago
  • EthicalVegan
    • 0
      EthicalVegan  
    • Image

    • http://www.npr.org/2010/12/01/131719071/research-pill-may-prevent-hiv-infection

      NPR...

      Research: Pill May Prevent HIV Infection

      Richard Knox and Steve Inskeep

      December 1, 2010

      Audio for this story from Morning Edition will be available at approx. 9:00 a.m. ET

      December 1, 2010

      It's World AIDS Day, and it's been nearly 30 years since the U.S. government first linked the disease to blood. So far, about 30 million people have died of HIV. Along with the terrible numbers, there is some positive research news. A study indicates a pill has been successful in preventing HIV in a group of high-risk men.

    • 1 year ago
  • EthicalVegan
    • 0
      EthicalVegan  
    • Image

    • http://www.etonline.com/news/103359_Stars_to_Die_for_World_AIDS_Day/

      Entertainment Tonight...

      Stars to 'Die' for World AIDS Day
      Keep a Child Alive

      By LISA HIRSCH
      November 30, 2010

      Stars including Alicia Keys, Lady Gaga and Justin Timberlake are planning their deaths in order to "Keep a Child Alive."

      Starting on World AIDS Day, Wednesday, December 1, celebs participating in the "Digital Death" campaign will virtually die -- logging off all social media sites like Twitter and Facebook until their lives have been "bought back" and $1 million collectively has been donated to the Keep a Child Alive campaign. The celebs will direct their online supporters to their personal pages at www.buylife.org where fans can donate to the campaign. Keep a Child Alive provides AIDS care, support, nutrition and love to children and families affected by HIV/AIDS in India and Africa, according to the organization.

      "By generously donating their time for Keep a Child Alive, these artists are bringing much needed awareness to the millions of people actually dying in Africa and India from HIV/AIDS," Keys said of the campaign. "We 'die' so they can live! ... We're digitally dying to give real life. I love the shock of it all, the call to action that we can all participate in!"

      Other stars who are participating include Kim Kardashian, Ryan Seacrest, P. Diddy, Usher, Jennifer Hudson, Serena Williams, Elijah Wood and many more.

    • 1 year ago
  • ayipis
    • 0
      ayipis  
    • EthicalVegan:

      are you serious about this shit??? LOL..virtually die??will direct supporters to their personal pages?? what the fuck!!

      why cant these motherfuckers just write a check instead of "donating their fucking time"..

      this is a good publicity stunt..a scam.....a free advertisement gimmick ...seeeesh

      shit like this just derails real effort to rid of this disease..

    • 1 year ago
  • EthicalVegan
  • EthicalVegan
    • 0
      EthicalVegan  
    • Image

    • http://www.newstalk.ie/news/5world-marks-world-aids-day98/

      NewsTalk...

      Cities around the world mark World AIDS Day
      December 1st, 2010
      0 Comments

      50% of Irish people living with HIV don not tell anyone about their condition.

      The finding is published to coincide with World AIDS day today.

      It is estimated that 33.4 million people around the world are living with HIV and AIDS.

      More than 25 million people have died since 1981.

      Meanwhile over 80 iconic landmarks across 13 countries are turning red to mark the day.

      Bono of U2 launched the day by lighting Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia.

      Table Mountain in South Africa, St. Paul’s Cathedral in London and the Empire State Building in New York are all joining in.

      Seb Bishop is the CEO of RED.

      He says a clear goal is in sight.

    • 1 year ago
  • EthicalVegan
    • 0
      EthicalVegan  
    • Image
    • EthicalVegan:

      http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/1201/breaking13.html

      Irish Times...

      Nearly 6,000 live with HIV in Ireland

      A student wearing an Aids red ribbon adjusts her beanie as she takes part in a World Aids Day event in China. Photograph: Jason Lee/ReutersA student wearing an Aids red ribbon adjusts her beanie as she takes part in a World Aids Day event in China. Photograph: Jason Lee/Reuters

      Related

      * Ireland's HIV rate has doubled since 1999 global peak | 01/12/2010
      * Graphic of the Week: World Aids Day
      * Economic woe hurting Aids fight - Bono | 30/11/2010
      * World Aids Day | 01/12/2010
      * Gender bias evident in Aids spread | 30/11/2010

      Some 5,805 people are living with the HIV/Aids virus in Ireland according to the Health Service Executive (HSE).

      To mark World Aids Day toady the executive has launched a sexual health awareness campaign to help combat STIs (sexually transmitted infections).

      Figures released by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) found in the first half of this year 168 new cases of HIV were diagnosed in Ireland compared to 209 in 2009 and 186 in 2008, the executive said.

      Men accounted for 123 new cases (73 per cent) and women 44 cases (26 per cent).

      Where the route of transmission was reported the centre said approximately 45 per cent of all new cases were among men who had sex with men, 40 per cent were heterosexual and almost 12 per cent were through intravenous drug use.

      The HSE campaign, which will especially target men as they account for biggest increase in new cases, aims to promote condom use to prevent sexually transmitted infections.

    • 1 year ago
  • EthicalVegan
    • 0
      EthicalVegan  
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    • http://www.nba.com/2010/news/features/steve_aschburner/11/30/gasol/?ls=iref:nbahpt1

      NBA News...

      Boyhood passion fuels Gasol's activism for World AIDS Day

      Posted Nov 30 2010 9:55PM

      Hospital appearances and PSAs -- public-service announcements, though almost everyone in pro sports refers to them in shorthand -- are part of the NBA's landscape, same as the other leagues. What goes on with them, typically, ranges from obligatory participation for public-relations purposes to genuine, heartfelt compassion.

      That's not being cynical -- it's being realistic, and pretty much what you would get from a cross section of busy, in-demand civilians, too. Some would do it for the patients and the causes, some would do it for the photo op.

      And then there's Pau Gasol, power forward -- actually, overworked fill-in center these days -- for the Los Angeles Lakers and a fellow for whom every sick kid, every worthy medical cause, represents a big "What if...?" challenge to the life's path he has chosen.

      Before Gasol became one of the world's best basketball players, he wanted to become a doctor. One of the world's very best at that profession, too, had he successfully reached his goals at the time. They were, after all, rather large: Cure AIDS. Save Magic Johnson.

      He was only 11 years old back in 1991, a grade school student back in Barcelona, Spain, when he and the rest of the world got the stunning news from Johnson himself that the Lakers' three-time NBA MVP had "attained" the deadly virus. "I thought, 'He's going to die,' " Gasol told ESPN.com this summer. "At that time, HIV ... AIDS equaled death. I was wandering around school, just thinking about it, just 'Wow.' "

      The significance of Gasol's reaction to the news then, to the desire of a passionate young NBA fan to somehow make things right, was not lost on him last week in a dressing room in Minneapolis.

      Johnson, arguably the greatest Laker ever, still is alive and well nearly 20 years after learning that he had been infected. Gasol is a part of Lakers lore now, too, having helped the team to back-to-back NBA championships in 2009 and 2010. And here is Gasol, a spokesperson for World AIDS Day on Dec. 1, one of several NBA players participating in a new PSA stressing awareness and prevention but probably the only one who imagined a career in medicine dedicated to it.

      "Probably a lot," Gasol said of the lasting impact on him of Johnson's diagnosis. "That's part of the message, too. It signals that, together, with greater links, how much more powerful we can be. If you understand what's going on, what you can do to prevent it and treat and manage it, you're doing yourself a big favor."

      Gasol's mother Marisa was a doctor and his father Agusti was a nurse administrator back in Spain. As HIV and AIDS mushroomed through both the world's population and the global media, they knew little more than the general public about the virus, its transmission and its repercussions. Gasol -- like a lot of us -- thought Johnson faced a fairly swift and grisly end. Then came the fears with his desire to stay active, first in the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona and later in a comeback to the Lakers. The NBA's "blood" rules were instituted and Karl Malone and others wondered about their exposure through physical contact.

      "Once the sickness started and began to spread out, people didn't understand. Not at first, Gasol said. "At first, there was a big stigma and people didn't want to have anything to do with it. If somebody had it, they wanted to isolate him and get away as far as possible.

      That's what a lack of information does to you. That's why I encourage awareness and be informed. Ask questions. Find out. Those are important things."

      Others in the NBA and WNBA have been touched even more directly by the disease. Candace Wiggins of the Minnesota Lynx was "born into" the issue, just shy of her fourth birthday in 1991, when her father Alan, a former major league baseball player, died from complications of AIDS at age 32. Former NBA forward Jayson Williams' troubled on- and off-court existence -- he currently is serving a five-year sentence for the accidental shotgun slaying (and cover-up attempt) of a limo driver -- is inseparable from the deaths of two sisters from AIDS in the 1980s.

      But Gasol's family background, his love of the NBA and his intellectual curiosity made AIDS and other medical issues an area of intense interest, both before and after his lone year as a med student at the University of Barcelona. Basketball -- Gasol was playing for the FC Barcelona junior team at the time -- soon crowded out his studies, but his choice was a good one because now he has a platform from which to do his charitable works.

      "Obviously with my parents both involved in the medial field growing up, that had a lot to do with it," said Gasol, who was to appear in a PSA along with Atlanta's Al Horford and Oklahoma City's Russell Westbrook. "Plus I also had a special interest about medicine."

      No kidding: The Lakers' lanky forward has been an ambassador for Spain's UNICEF committee since 2003. He has traveled to Africa -- South Africa, Angola and, this summer, Ethiopia -- to push the fight against HIV and AIDS. Gasol has donated tens of thousands of dollars to the effort, along with his time in a shadow career to his better-known basketball profile.

      It's one thing to sit through the NBA's sessions on sexuality and AIDS awareness, informational meetings to familiarize players with statistics, risks and methods of transmissions. It's quite another to embrace this battle and others. Or, for that matter, to witness scoliosis spinal surgery in an operating room with orthopedist David Skaggs of Children's Hospital in Hollywood, as Gasol did over the summer.

      "I feel extremely privileged and fortunate that basketball has allowed me to do far greater things in life than I would have imagined," Gasol said last week. "I'm very thankful about it, and that's why I'm very pro-active in different matters."

      Gasol's bottom line for World AIDS Day? "Just because it hasn't happened to you doesn't mean you should be less conscious about it," he said. "I think information is always powerful. What you can do if you have somebody around you or close to you who has it, how to behave and handle it, and contribute and help. ... It's important to understand that it's a serious sickness and that it can be prevented in many ways. We can face it."

    • 1 year ago
  • EthicalVegan
    • 0
      EthicalVegan  
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    • http://broadwayworld.com/article/Minnelli_Channing_Celebrates_World_AIDS_Day_201...

      Broadway World...

      Minnelli, Channing Celebrate World AIDS Day 2010 12/1
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      Wednesday, December 1, 2010; Posted: 02:12 AM - by BWW News Desk
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      Minnelli_Channing_Perform_For_World_AIDS_Day_2010_20010101

      Commemorating World AIDS Day 2010, Liza Minnelli, Stockard Channing, Tyson Beckford, the Broadway Inspirational Voices choir, and others will lead an event to extinguish the lights on the historic Washington Square Park Memorial Arch to remember those lost to AIDS. Elsewhere in the city, lights will be turned off on other major landmarks. The event is free and open to the public.

      The event is part of the Light for Rights campaign, a global initiative organized by UNAIDS; amfAR; Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS; and the World AIDS Campaign. The campaign, in its second year, showcases the importance of fundamental human rights in the worldwide fight against AIDS.

      The New York event will be from 5:30 pm-6:30 pm in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. Minnelli, Channing, Beckford, and 30 Rock

      During the event, the lights on the Washington Square Park Memorial Arch will be turned off and then re-illuminated as the speakers discuss the importance of emphasizing human rights when confronting the AIDS pandemic.

      Elsewhere in New York, the marquee lights on many New York City landmarks will be extinguished as part of the campaign. Participating venues include the Brooklyn Bridge; the New York Stock Exchange; the Plaza Hotel; Madison Square Garden; Carnegie Hall; Museum of Modern Art; the Beacon Theatre; Jim Campbell's Madison Square Park's art installation Scattered Light

      For more information, click here: www.LightforRights.org/

      Photo Credit: Monica Simoes

    • 1 year ago
  • EthicalVegan
    • 0
      EthicalVegan  
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    • http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/good-day/2010/11/ryan-white-s-mother-receive-awa...

      San Francisco Examiner...

      Ryan White’s mother to receive award during World AIDS Day event
      World AIDS Day: Michael Thomas Ford, Lucy Jane Bledsoe and Monica Nolan appear on an LGBT author panel and sign copies of their books. [12:30 p.m., Borders, 400 Post St., S.F.]

      World AIDS Day: An observance of World AIDS Day takes place at the National AIDS Memorial Grove. Leadership award recipients include Jeanne White-Ginder, activist and mother of the late Ryan White. [Noon, Golden Gate Park, S.F.]

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    • http://www.ktvu.com/news/25968049/detail.html

      KTUV...

      Activists Gather In Memorial Grove On Eve Of World AIDS Day

      Posted: 10:33 pm PST November 30, 2010

      SAN FRANCISCO -- On the eve of World AIDS Day Tuesday night, people gathered at the National AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park to mark a milestone in the fight against the disease: the 20th anniversary of the Ryan White Care Act, the landmark legislation that changed the fight against AIDS.

      Ryan White's mother, Jeanne White Ginder, placed a candle next to her son's name in the "Circle of Friends" memorial for those who have died from AIDS.

      Diagnosed at 13, Ginder's son waged a courageous battle against AIDS related discrimination during the height of the disease in the late 1980s.

      Ginder was brought to tears thinking about the dramatic toll the epidemic has taken on people around the world.

      "It wasn't just about Ryan. There are so many families that have been through this AIDS epidemic,” said Ginder. “They felt the same pain and suffering that I went through."

      Twenty years after her son died at the age of 18 and 30 years after the disease began to take hold in the U.S., much progress has been made.

      According to the latest United Nations AIDS report, there's been a downward trend in new HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths over the past decade.

      But there is still no cure for the disease.

      Tracey Packer of Oakland took part in the event to remember a friend she to AIDS.

      "One of my friends name is engraved here. He's one of my closest friends. He died five years ago," said Packer.

      The UN report shows there were 1.8 AIDS-related deaths in 2009.

      Those working on HIV prevention believe the world's attention has turned to other things.

      "People are worried about things like being broke or losing their house,” said Matthew Denckla of San Francisco. “There's lots of other competing issues."

      But Tuesday night in the grove, a fundraiser was held to continue the push to educate and raising awareness about AIDS. The event also raised the issue of acquiring federal funding to fight the disease, something that wasn't available before the AIDS bill that bears Ryan White’s name.

      "We were just desperate for resources,” Former Executive Director of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation Pat Christen, the woman who was one of the chief architects of the Ryan White Care Act. “People needed care and treatment. They needed access to services and the government wasn't responding."

      A boulder engraved with Christen’s name in recognition of her work will be unveiled at a ceremony in the AIDS Grove Wednesday. The giant rock also honors the late Senator Edward Kennedy as well as Ryan White and his mother.

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    • http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/health/2010/12/01/2010-12-01_world_aids_day...

      PART ONE...

      New York Daily News...

      World AIDS Day in New York City to honor HIV/AIDS victims; buildings will light up in red

      BY Rosemary Black
      NEW YORK DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

      Wednesday, December 1st 2010, 4:00 AM

      World AIDS Day will be observed with candlelight vigils, panel discussions and free HIV testing.
      Take our Poll
      World AIDS Day

      It's World AIDS Day and the stats are sobering.

      An estimated 1.1 million Americans are living with HIV, yet one in five don't know it.

      Wednesday, Dec. 1 is an opportunity to take action to stop the spread of HIV, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. A variety of events are planned around the city. Here's a rundown of what you can see and do to help.

      JOIN RED

      Many buildings, including the Empire State Building, the JFK Control Tower, the NASDAQ Marketsite Tower in Times Square and Brooklyn Borough Hall will be lit in red to draw awareness to AIDS prevention. They include. The Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum will also be lit in red. For information, visit www.joinred.com.

      LIGHT FOR RIGHTS

      Lights on the Washington Square Park Memorial Arch will be switched off during a "Light for Rights" media event from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m to remember those who have died of AIDS. Fifth Ave. at Washington Square Park North.)

      Liza Minnelli, New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan) and actor Stockard Channing are just a few of the big names expected to speak. There also will be a performance by the Broadway Inspirational Voices choir. The lights will then be turned back on to emphasize human rights for those living with HIV/AIDS.

      Other participating landmarks that will switch off lights include Carnegie Hall, the New York Stock Exchange, and 35 Broadway theaters. There are more than 60 LIGHT FOR RIGHTS events going on around the world (more information at www.lightforrights.org). The event is sponsored by amfAR, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, UNAIDS and the World AIDS Campaign.

      GET TESTED

      Long Island College Hospital is offering free, rapid HIV testing on World AIDS Day from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the LICH Ambulatory Care Center, 349 Henry St. in Brooklyn. Those who opt for testing get confidential results in 40 minutes, along with counseling and various resources. For more info, call (718) 780-1691.

      Free rapid HIV testing in Times Square, sponsored by the Community Healthcare Network, will be offered from 9 a.m . to 2 p.m. in Times Square (43rd St . and Seventh Ave.) For information, visit www.nyaidscoalition.org.

      CONTINUED...

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      CONTINUED...

      PART TWO...

      VIGILS FOR THOSE WE'VE LOST

      The Comprehensive Care Center (HIV/AIDS clinic at St. Luke's-Roosevelt) is holding a commemoration service at St. Luke's at 12:30 p.m. in the Muhlenberg Auditorium at Amsterdam Ave. and 114th St. And at 3:15 p.m., the HIV staff from Beth Israel���s various programs will hold a candlelight vigil and walk through the community. The vigil event starts in front of Fierman Hall on E. 17th St.

      A World AIDS Day candlelight procession and unveiling of youth art will be held at 3 p.m. at the Dominican Sisters Family Health Service (279 Alexander Ave. in the Bronx.) For information, visit www.nyaidscoalition.org.

      LEARN THE FACTS

      An event entitled "Community + Faith Is Greater Than AIDS" will be held at the Riverside Church from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. It’s sponsored by the Black AIDS Institute, Gay Men's Health Crisis, Harlem United and Iris House. The address is 91 Claremont Ave. in Harlem. For more information, visit www.nyaidscoalition.org.

      "I Am Living My Rights: Stop AIDS, Keep the Promise" will be held from 9:30 a.m . to 3:30 p.m. at the AIDS Service Center in Manhattan (41 E. 11th St., on the fifth floor.) There will be Stop AIDS skits, and lunch at Poet Cafe. For information, visit www.nyaidscoalition.org.

      The AIDS Center of Queens County and Queens HIV Care Network will have two screenings of the documentary "Sex in an Epidemic" at 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. The screenings will be at the AIDS Center of Queens County, 89-74 162nd St . in the sixth-floor conference room in Jamaica, Queens. There is also a candlelight vigil at 3:30 p.m. For info, call (718 ) 896-2500.

      At the Asia Society, an event entitled "HIV/AIDS in Asia: Is it a rights issue?" will be held from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Panelists will discuss issues from the International AIDS Conference and explore their implications for Asia. The event is $10 for members and $15 for non-members. The Asia Society is at 725 Park Ave.

      A presentation entitled "Ending the Epidemic: The Global Effort of HIV Vaccine and Prevention Research" will be held from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m . on Dec. 1 in the Columbia University Medical Center’s Black Building, Alumni Auditorium (630 W. 168th St.) The event is sponsored by the NYC HIV Vaccine Trials Unit and Columbia’s International Health Organization. The photo exhibit "Mothers and Children of Africa" also will be on display.

      Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/health/2010/12/01/2010-12-01_world_aids_day...

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    • http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-il-worldaidsday-illin,0,4949973.story

      Chicago Tribune...

      World AIDS Day arrives after encouraging research

      World AIDS Day

      Associated Press

      2:02 a.m. CST, December 1, 2010

      CHICAGO —

      Health authorities in Illinois are marking World AIDS Day on Wednesday with education and awareness-raising. AIDS remains a pandemic nearly three decades after it was discovered.

      Activities commemorating the day include an open-to-the-public breakfast and forum at Cook County's Provident Hospital on Chicago's South Side. Authorities want to spread the message to "get educated, get tested, and get treated."

      Provident has seen a 30 percent decrease in HIV/AIDS deaths there this year. Dr. Arthur Moswin credits several factors including patients sticking with their AIDS medicines and routine medical visits.

      National AIDS authorities are marking the day by noting encouraging milestones in AIDS research this year. That includes the recent announcement that an anti-virus drug approved for treating HIV also helps prevent it in gay men.

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    • http://www.worldaidsday.org/

      TAKE ACTION ON 1 DECEMBER 2010

      Over 90,000 people are living with HIV in the UK and new infections continue every year. World AIDS Day 2010 is all about raising awareness to tackle HIV prejudice and help stop the spread of HIV.

      Explore this site to ensure you understand the facts about HIV and find out what you can do to ACT AWARE. Make a pledge and join people all over the world making a difference on 1 December 2010.

      Pledge: http://www.worldaidsday.org/

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