World AIDS Day, Canadian Prime Minister Harper Enables Domestic HIV Epidemic, Elton John Guest Edits Independent To Mark World AIDS Day, Bill Clinton On HIV/AIDS Prevention And Research During Time Of Economic Trouble, David Furnish On The Anti-Gay Discrimination Fuelling HIV/AIDS Pandemic, American AIDS Crisis Creates New Collegiate Activism

Today, December 1st, 2010 is World AIDS Day, the organisation’s Web site offering an exhaustive warehousing of resources, including reports on the day’s events, and on the continued efforts of prevention and research.

From the Toronto Star, an article authored by Doctor Julio Montaner, director of the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, who says that today, the 22nd World AIDS Day, new, disturbing attitudes are emerging towards HIV/AIDS – “complacency and disregard,” and he argues that the under the tenure of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservative government there now is “a wide-ranging domestic HIV epidemic,” noting that “an estimated 26-percent of the HIV-infected Canadians are not aware that they are infected.” As for the failure of Harper, he writes “The lack of leadership and systematic opposition to evidence-based policies to combat HIV and AIDS by the federal government is flabbergasting. In contrast to the United States, we don’t even have a national HIV testing day. Expanded coverage with antiretroviral therapy has been shown to decrease morbidity and mortality as well as new HIV infections in British Columbia, yet there are no plans to roll out this program across Canada. Injection drug use remains the second most common form of HIV transmission, yet the Conservatives refuse to embrace harm-reduction strategies that have been shown to save lives, reduce drug use and promote safer communities. Canada has an opportunity to drastically curb the impact of HIV and AIDS. In doing so we can deal with our domestic problem and at the same time show the world how this can be achieved. In order to do so we must start by strengthening sexual education and harm reduction campaigns, including safer sex and condom promotion. We must also wholeheartedly embrace harm-reduction initiatives and decriminalization of drug use. Furthermore, we urgently need a Canada-wide HIV testing campaign.”

The Independent marks World AIDS Day with a special edition guest-edited by Sir Elton John, that includes an opinion by former president Bill Clinton, who writes that in a time of economic crisis, more must be done with less to combat and prevent HIV/AIDS, as well as a commentary by David Furnish, Elton’s partner, who argues that “HIV epidemics cannot be successfully quelled unless the underlying spread of HIV by male-to-male sex is addressed. Yet, across the globe, socially accepted homophobia and violence against sexual minorities have created barriers to HIV-prevention efforts in this population.”

The New York Times reports on the new style of collegiate AIDS activist, highlighting a “loose-knit band of about two dozen Ivy Leaguers, mostly from Harvard and Yale, is using more confrontational tactics, as well as some high-powered connections, to wangle encounters with top White House officials in a determined, and seemingly successful, effort to get under Mr. Obama’s skin” at a time when “many in the AIDS advocacy community are wondering aloud whether Mr. Obama is as devoted to their cause as his immediate predecessor, George W. Bush. In 2003, Mr. Bush began vastly increasing spending on lifesaving antiretroviral medicines for AIDS patients in impoverished nations; the number receiving the drugs has shot up from 50,000 to more than five million today. Yet the World Health Organization says as many as 10 million lack needed therapy.”