<b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">On the importance of considering independent/alternative/dissident thought earlier rather than later </span></b><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"><u></u> <u></u></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">I read the announcement below with despair – over the lost lives and lost opportunities over at least a decade. Better late than never perhaps, but there are lessons to be learned.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">When triple therapies for AIDS were introduced 10 or more years ago, we learned that they reduced viral load to undetectable levels. Those of us who cared about AIDS victims dared to propose that <b>the obvious preventive potential of triple therapy should be explored and exploited immediately.</b> Yes, triple therapy was expensive but if it reduced infectiousness of the HIV positive person under treatment, in addition to prolonging his or her life, surely there was even greater justification for immediate, widespread use. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">WHO and UNAIDS vetoed all such discussion (I worked in AIDS around this time for both organizations). We were not to talk about triple therapy in terms of prevention. Why not? “Because it would encourage people not to use condoms”. Was there any evidence to justify this paternalistic position? I doubt it. <u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">Any thinking and caring person working in AIDS despairs of the extraordinary aversion to any alternative thinking, let alone “so called” dissidence in this area. <u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">Censorship, <i>pensée unique</i> in our international establishments:</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p><u></u><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Symbol;color:#1F497D"><span>·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span><u></u><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">In relation to <b>human rights,</b> I was instructed by the most senior human rights focal point in WHO at the time <b>not to mention social and economic rights</b> in relation to a WHO paper that was to be prepared on AIDS and human rights. I was to write only about civil, political and cultural rights only. As my director said when we left the meeting, astounded at what we had heard, “No wonder nothing is ever achieved in controlling HIV/AIDS.”<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p><u></u><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Symbol;color:#1F497D"><span>·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span><u></u><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">In relation to the role of <b>weakened and/or disturbed immune systems, due to malnutrition/undernutrition and to co-infection</b> with the many other diseases of poverty, no discussion was allowed despite mountains of evidence on the ways in which these factors increase transmission.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p><u></u><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Symbol;color:#1F497D"><span>·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span><u></u><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">Discussion of the role of <b>unsterilized equipment in health care settings</b> is practically taboo!<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">Back to prevention and ARVs. Did we really have to wait for results of trials to prove that ARVs might contribute to prevention? Could those trials have been conducted earlier? There was, in any case, a moral imperative to provide effective treatment, and if as a by-product, (some/many?) new HIV infections could have been prevented, surely this strategy should have been implemented ?<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">Wherever you look, whether it is climate change, the crisis of water shortage, nuclear catastrophes, avoidable disease and death, you will find that alternative/dissident activists and thinkers have been sounding the alarm and urging the solution for 10, 15, 20 years. <u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">Can we really afford these time lags? Must we wait 10, 15, 20, 25 years for people’s interests to finally prevail over the private interests which today largely determine the strategies and policies of our international institutions? <u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">In solidarity, <u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D" lang="FR-CH">Alison Katz<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D" lang="FR-CH">IndependentWHO/PHM/Centre Europe Tiers Monde, Geneva<br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D" lang="FR-CH"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D" lang="FR-CH"> </span></p></div></div></blockquote></div><br>
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