Saturday, May 17, 2025



Social activism offers good news in worldwide fight against AIDS

Journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tina Rosenberg began her lecture Tuesday night by telling the audience, “You’re all probably wondering what the good news is about global AIDS.”

Rosenberg’s lecture, titled “The Good News About Global AIDS,” highlighted how AIDS activists have fought to reduce medicine prices in the U.S. to make advanced new treatments more readily available to those in need.

“This talk isn’t just about AIDS,” Rosenberg said. “It’s also about social activism.”

With the development of drug combinations such as “triple cocktail,” AIDS has become a more manageable condition, with activists leading the effort to make these treatments more affordable.

Rosenberg reminded her audience that, despite efforts being made, there are still many challenges to overcome, such as rising prices for pharmaceuticals in developing countries.

AIDS cases are rising in Asia and Eastern Europe, Rosenberg said, and the growing number of people affected by the virus has begun to severely affect agricultural production in these regions of the world. Rosenberg noted that this will increase hunger worldwide.

Though Tuesday’s lecture included grim statistics, Rosenberg also acknowledged some of the advancements that have been made in improving the availability of treatment in developing countries.

According to Rosenberg, as of this past January 700,000 infected people in developing countries were receiving medication, a seventy-five percent increase from the previous year. Eighty-eight percent of infected people in these countries, however, are still without treatment. The World Health Organization set a goal to provide treatment to half of these people by the end of the year.

Rosenberg applauded Dr. Paul Farmer, among others, for their fight against corporate control of AIDS medications. Farmer is a noted doctor and social anthropologist who set up medical centers in central Haiti and spoke at Wesleyan on Wednesday night.

“[Farmer] refused to accept that what works for rich people won’t work for poor people,” Rosenberg said.

Farmer’s organization Partners in Health hired local assistants who watched patients take their medication and consulted with them about challenges they might have in taking their pills regularly. Today, one hundred percent of Haitian AIDS patients take their medications on schedule, compared to eighty-percent of the general population, according to the organization.

Rosenberg used Brazil as a model for effective activism against rising prices of AIDS medications. According to Rosenberg, the Brazilian government analyzed vital medications and made genetic copies, a practice permitted by the World Trade Organization. The economic competition of the copied medications prompted major drug companies to lower their prices.

She added that this initiative taken on by the Brazilian government saved approximately 100,000 lives and allowed hundreds of people infected with the virus to remain in the workplace.

Brazil’s breakthrough has caused a domino effect of responses from drug companies.

“Groups exposed how much drug companies were [profiting], even if they didn’t create the drug,” Rosenberg said. “[The drugs] were priced higher in Kenya than in Norway. Other drug companies followed so as not to be vilified.”

Another problem that Rosenberg identified is the shortage of medical experts in many developing countries.

“There are more Ethiopian doctors today practicing in Chicago than in Ethiopia,” she said. “Three-quarters of all doctors emigrate to a wealthy country. That’s a huge loss of wealth and resources for the developing world.”

Doctors who remain in their home countries to practice medicine find themselves overextended, underpaid and without sufficient equipment to effectively treat patients.

“It was remarkable how she was able to weave together political, economic, sociological and medical arguments into a seamless narrative,” said Peter Rutland, Chair of the College of Social Studies, who co-hosted the lecture along with Anne Greene, Director of Writing Programs.

“She tackled these emotionally charged issues in a clear-headed and objective manner that was a model for social inquiry,” Rutland added.

One student felt that Rosenberg’s emphasis on increasing the availability of AIDS treatment was the most important subject of the lecture.

“It is important [to remember] what is possible and what some successes have accomplished and what more has to be done,” said Jesse Greenspan ’06.

The lecture was sponsored by the College of Social Studies, the Writing Program, and the Edward W. Snowdon fund.

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