PHA-Exchange> A good question

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A puzzle for future historians . By Sebastian Mallaby

Why focus on Iraq and not AIDS?

 WASHINGTON

 A century from now, when historians write about our era, one question will
dwarf all others, and it won't be about finance or politics or even
terrorism- The question will be, simply, how could a rich and civilized
society allow a known and beatable enemy to kill millions of people?

The enemy, of course, is the HIV virus, and the unnecessary stupidity of its
slaughter.
The central message is that  AIDS can be beaten back. There is no reason why
the plague should have killed 3 million last year; nor why it should now be
advancing quickly into China and India. Yet this monstrous destruction
proceeds because not enough people have been shocked into revolt.

Here, surely, is the puzzle for future historians. How could we Americans, a
society with the technology to land a missile on Saddam Hussein, not
mobilize the science necessary to defeat the scourge? How could the United
States, a nation that spends $10 billion a year on soaps and perfumes, give
$1 billion in public money annually for battling the virus and regard that
as enough? How is it that we have known about AIDS for two decades yet only
now are starting to react?

Some say reaction is hopeless, but that is wrong. Uganda has driven the HIV
prevalence rate among pregnant women in its capital down from 30 percent to
11 percent during the past decade. Senegal, Brazil and Thailand all have had
some success in fighting off the virus. AIDS need not advance unchallenged.
It is an optional catastrophe.

So why do we mobilize for an Iraq war that may cost  more than $100 billion,
even as we offer $1 billion a year to fight a scourge equivalent to 2 1/2
Sept. 11s every day? It's partly that Iraq seems to threaten us more
directly, but "seem" is the operative word here. If AIDS is allowed to kill
one in three Africans, the failed states and power vacuums that result are
bound to harm U.S. interests. And if the United States stands back and lets
this happen, its moral claim to global leadership will have been undermined.

The real reason for our muted reaction is that AIDS  is silent, repetitive
and boring.

New infections are occurring at a rate of 5 million per year. The spread can
be contained, but this isn't happening in most places. People can be
treated, but only 1 percent of HIV-positive Africans are receiving drugs.

The Washington Post