While it may not seem at first glance a Thanksgiving topic, I think it’s a great one. The Worldwide AIDs epidemic has finally peaked and the incidence of new cases on the wane. The graph below is the Worldwide incidence of people living with HIV from the UNAIDS 2008 Report [with the new 2008 figure added]. For the first time since AIDS has been tracked, the number has not risen. It’s held steady for a year.
In addition, the UNAIDS 2009 update reports that the infection rate is down 17% based on eight year trend analysis, with the biggest fall in Sub-Saharan Africa – the hardest hit area. In a time when our financial and political problems preoccupy us, it’s easy to forget things once as imponderable as the AIDS epidemic, and to forget that the UN and the World Health Organization have successfully rallied the countries of the world to do something about it. It’s been twenty-eight years since Case Zero, and while the epidemic continues and challenges remain, this is very good news – a reason for giving thanks. Let’s hope the world finally adapts in the same way to the threat of Global Warming…
Mickey — thanks for reminding us of a piece of good news in this troubled world.
And this is perhaps the one thing that we can feel that George Bush contributed in a positive way. I happen to think the program would have been more effective if he had not insisted on the narrow “abstinence” method of prevention. But he did make a contribution treatment for AIDS in Africa.
So perhaps my contribution to the thanksgiving spirit is to recognize that there is some good in even the worst of us.
Ralph
PS: I started to say I was still waiting to find that in the XVP — and then I remembered that he was supportive of his lesbian daughter’s relationship, pregnancies, and the right to marry.
I’m sorry to dampen Ralph’s comment regarding XVP but Cheney has always been self serving.