U.S. fights back against AIDS criticism
Don't allow pandemic 'to divide us,' coordinator says
Adrees Latif / Reuters
Randall Tobias, the U.S. global AIDS coordinator, watches after his speech was interrupted by delegates protesting at the International AIDS Conference in Bangkok, July 14. Despite widespread criticism of the Bush administration at the conference, Washington insists it is leading the global fight against AIDS.
The United States on Wednesday urged its detractors to end their bickering over condoms and drug patents, and join hands with Washington in a global partnership to fight their common enemy: AIDS.
Defending the Bush administration’s policy from intense criticism, U.S. AIDS coordinator Randall Tobias said that the United States is spending nearly twice as much to fight global AIDS as the rest of the world’s donor governments combined.
“At this point, perhaps the most critical mistake we can make is to allow this pandemic to divide us,” Tobias said in a speech to the International AIDS Conference.
“We are striving toward the same goal a world free of HIV/AIDS. When 8,000 lives are lost to AIDS every day, division is a luxury we cannot afford,” he said.
The United States has come under fire this week at the six-day conference over its AIDS policies, with activists, scientists and governments finding fault with nearly every Washington policy on HIV.
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