July 18, 2014 - openDemocracy.
by Alice Welbourn
Scientists, politicians, policy-makers, academics, doctors, celebrities – and those few activists who can afford it – are gathering for the 20th World AIDS Conference which opens in Melbourne this weekend. Meeting to discuss the global pandemic, it is already apparent that the theme and objectives offer nothing new in the global response to AIDS, other than to scale up what is already known to work - for some.
There is no cure, there is no vaccine, and neither is on the near horizon. Yet more women than ever have HIV and many are still dying. There is also an increasing tendency of policy makers to promote treatments to all people with HIV - and even now to those who don't - whether they actually need it already for themselves or not; and for governments to introduce criminalisation as a means of controlling those at the margins of their societies whom they see as a “problem”. Both these policies include, and affect, women with HIV. Continue reading…
