The opening of the Third International AIDS Society Conference: Speech

This is a meeting of scientists and experts in the world of HIV/AIDS. I am neither a scientist nor an expert. I'm an observer. I have spent the last four years traveling through Africa, primarily southern Africa, watching people die. I think I understand, better than most, why your collective scientific and academic work can be said to be the most important ongoing work on the planet.

But precisely because the work you do speaks to the rescue of the human condition, you carry an immense public and international authority. I beg you never to underestimate that authority. And I beg you to use it beyond the realms of science.

What we desperately need in the response to HIV/AIDS today are voices of advocacy: tough, unrelenting, informed. The issues are so intense, the situation is so precarious for millions of people, the virus cuts such a swath of pain and desolation, that your voices, as well as your science, must be summoned and heard.

I recognize that the scientific arts absorb a lifetime. You didn't become scientists and experts to mount the barricades. But it's a quarter century into the life of the pandemic, and answers still elude us, questions still haunt us, and incredibly enough, the responses of the international community continue to be inadequate, sometimes even abysmal. At this moment in time, precisely ten years before the target date for the Millennium Development Goals set by all UN member states to tackle poverty and disease, the virus puts every goal at risk for countless nations, and particularly for the continent of Africa.

The full speech can be accessed on the righthand side of this page