Quotes illustrating the history of AIDS ahead of the 16th International AIDS Conference, running in Toronto, Canada, from Aug 13-18.
EARLY HOPES OF A CURE YIELD TO REALISM
- "We hope to have a vaccine ready for testing in about two years." Margaret Heckler, then US secretary for health and human services, 1984. (Twenty-two years later, there is still no effective AIDS vaccine in sight.)
- "Yet another terrible disease is about to yield to patience, persistence and outright genius". Report by the US Congress' Office of Technology Assessment, February 1985.
- "HIV is one of the toughest viruses we have yet battled. The only thing that will beat it is the human brain." Dennis Burton, professor at the US Scripps Research Institute, 2004.
IGNORANCE, STIGMA, POVERTY: THE ENDURING BATTLE
- "AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals." Jerry Falwell, US televangelist, 1991.
- "I thought AIDS was something that happened to gays and drug addicts. A macho guy like me who loves ladies and is superfit -- he doesn't get AIDS." Former US boxer Tommy Morrison, once a contender for the heavyweight crown, after he tested positive for HIV prior to a fight in 1996.
- "Their familes said that because they were infected with HIV, they were dead already and should sleep in a graveyard," Rob Shell, professor of population research at South Africa's University of the Western Cape, October 2003. Shell was recounting a visit to a cemetery where he found a group of people sleeping next to tombstones. They had been thrown out of their homes because they had the AIDS virus.
- "I walked into a village with a reporter. We heard loud wailing coming from one of the homes. When we arrived at the house, I saw a child clutching at the mother's leg. The mother had hung herself because she had AIDS and couldn't treat herself," Gao Yaojie, 77, Chinese AIDS activist, 2004.
- "Today, I call upon all of you -- every global citizen -- not to forget. We must seize this opportunity to demonstrate that we share a common humanity and that it matters who my sister or brother is. We must never reduce the issue to statistics." Nelson Mandela at the 15th International AIDS Conference, Bangkok, July 2004.
GRASSROOTS WORK: CARE, PREVENTION, ACCESS TO TREATMENT
- "Caring for a child with HIV is probably 10 times harder than caring for a healthy one. Love is not enough." Nguyen Thi Phuong, who runs a kindergarten for children with HIV in Hanoi.
- "If people [in China] could get a condom as conveniently and naturally as buying a Chinese cabbage, the AIDS prevention function carried out by condoms could finally imbue people's lives and change their bias" against safe sex. Youth campaigner Tao Ran, backing an operation launched in September 2005 to distribute more than 300 million condoms across China.
- "The advances... are cause for hope," South African government spokesman Joel Netshitenzhe, announcing that more than 210,000 people with HIV in South Africa now have access to antiretrovirals, May 2006. AIDS activists believe as many as 500,000 need the drugs, which South Africa belatedly started to distribute for free in 2004.
- "We have a target of getting at least 13-14 million people to download the games" by the end of 2006. Hilmi Quraishi of Indian company ZMQ Software Systems, which markets an AIDS-awareness cricket game in which a "Demons XI" play the "Safety XI".
POLITICS: TURNING POINTS IN THE EPIDEMIC
- "This is a top priority with us. Yes, there's no question about the seriousness of this and the need to find an answer." President Ronald Reagan, ending a prolonged and controversial silence on AIDS, pledges half a billion dollars in research funds. September 1985.
- "There has been a world-wide revolt of public opinion. People no longer accept that the sick and dying, simply because they are poor, should be denied drugs which have transformed the lives of others who are better off." UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, announcing the creation of the Global AIDS Fund, 26 April 2001.
- "No war on the face of the Earth is more destructive than the AIDS pandemic. I was a soldier. But I know of no enemy in war more insidious or vicious than AIDS. Will history record a fateful moment in our time, on our watch, when action came too late?" US Secretary of State Colin Powell in address to the UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS, June 2001.
- "[We pledge to] halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS" by 2015. Millennium Development Goal No. 6, vowed by UN members in September 2001.
- "This comprehensive plan will prevent seven million new AIDS infections, treat at least two million people with life-extending drugs, and provide humane care for millions of people suffering from AIDS, and for children orphaned by AIDS." US President George W. Bush, announcing a 15-billion-dollar, five-year plan to combat AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean, January 2003.
- "The lives of millions of people are at stake. This strategy demands massive and unconventional efforts to make sure they stay alive." Lee Jong-wook, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), unveiling the "Three by Five" initiative in December 2003, which aimed to get anti-HIV drugs to three million poor people by the end of 2005.
AIDS TODAY: REAL CAUSE FOR OPTIMISM?
- "We've seen important progress made by countries over the past five years that increased funding, with a decrease in the number of new infections, particularly among young people... we are at the crossroads in this epidemic." UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot, May 30 2006.
