I haven’t heard yet whether delegates at this week’s International AIDS conference — slogan, “Right Here, Right Now” — ever broke into any rousing choruses in the key of Jesus Jones. Given broad fears that the war on HIV/AIDS is falling apart, though, it seems unlikely.
Still, there was plenty of showmanship to be found. As Mitchel Zoler writes, singer Annie Lennox co-chaired a plenary session, while volunteers frescoed the halls and columns with pastel mosaics and murals made of condoms.
But beyond it all was an overriding sense of frustration with the fact that donor money for HIV/AIDS is rapidly disappearing. Earlier this week, for example, Desmond Tutu penned a New York Times op-ed unfavorably comparing the Obama administration’s track record on the issue with that of President Bush.
