We never get any good news around here, so here is a small piece:
The cost of treating children infected with H.I.V. and AIDS is poised to plummet next year, under a deal announced today between two Indian drugmakers and former President Bill Clinton’s foundation.
Cipla and Ranbaxy Laboratories agreed to make 19 different anti-retroviral drugs designed for children available at an average price of 16 cents a day, or $60 a year, which is about 45 percent lower than the lowest current price, the Clinton Foundation said in a statement.
Because not everyone has access to the current lowest price, the plan will actually translate into a four- to six-fold cost reduction for many children, said Stephen Lewis, the United Nations special envoy for H.I.V. and AIDS in Africa.
The prices will be available to 62 developing countries and will lead to the treatment of an additional 100,000 people in 2007, the statement said.
Good news, indeed.
Pb
It’s nice to see the President put aside partisanship and finally make good on his many promises to actually fight AIDS for once.
Wait… Clinton? Never mind, that bastard probably gave those kids AIDS in the first place, right after he finished burying Vince Foster after snorting a line of coke off of him!
Aaron
Damn your evil Bill Clinton. This is all your fault!
;-)
jg
Clintons doing this for selfish reasons. He just sees kids without AIDS as future interns. The bastard. Bush would cure the whole world. And give us a kick ass slogan.
Jay
Yeah, just by laying hands on them.
Snark aside, I’m glad to hear this. Thanks Mr. Clinton.
Krista
This is good news. It’s always nice to see former presidents getting involved in benefiting the lives of others via good works. I wonder what kind of philanthropy Bush will involve himself with after he leaves office? (Must….not….laugh….)
On a side note, Stephen Lewis spoke in Halifax recently — wish I could have seen him.
neil
Isn’t it socialism to ask drug companies to lower prices?
James F. Elliott
“Isn’t it socialism to ask drug companies to lower prices?”
Only if you’re the government. This is philanthropy.
demimondian
No, it’s socialism to engage in a public negotiation between informed parties in order to arrive at an enforceable contract between the parties. That’s why the government should not represent the people who buy drugs in the negotiation.
SeesThroughIt
POTD so far.
Hey Krista, whaddya think about the Nation of Quebec?
Zifnab
Doesn’t Clinton realize that by curing AIDS he’s just encouraging pre-marital sex and homosexuality?
Krista
If calling them a nation means that I don’t have to hear about separatism anymore, I’m all for it. I don’t really think that they ARE a nation, though. Quebecers did not all originate from the same place or the same ethnic background. So to call them a “nation” solely because of what province they live in is silly. If I moved to Trois-Rivieres, I’d suddenly become part of a nation? Personally, I think it kind of belittles the people who actually fit that title, like the people of the First Nations. Or even the Acadians, who do share actual origins.
But, like I said, I’ll call them the Most Holy Principality of Quebec if it cuts down on the perpetual bitching and moaning coming from the Bloc Quebecois.
scarshapedstar
My god, my god, next he’ll give them the HPV vaccine and the terrorists will truly have won.
Tulkinghorn
I heard he is going to help O.J. find the real killers, and O.J. will help him find the missing WMD.
Tulkinghorn
And Krista, it should properly be called the “Delusion of Quebec”, unless they will settle for 30 miles north and south of the Saint Lawrence River (but you already knew that).
S.W. Anderson
It’s interesting and kind of disappointing that the names in this good news are Cipla and Ranbaxy, as opposed to, say, Merck and Pfizer.
Oh, wait, I forgot. Merck and Pfizer have got humungous lobbyist fees to pay and campaign contribution expenses.
t. jasper parnell
Boy is the American nation in trouble. If multi-ethinic communities constructed from immigrants, settlers, various linquistic communities living cheek by jowl in an artificially constructed border isn’t a nation, what is the good ol’ US of A? Chopped fluffernutter?
t. jasper parnell
And that’s not even considering the Spanish, nor yet the French or even the Indians. Why to hear you tell it there are no nations; there are just imagined communities.
Krista
t.jasper – Maybe it’s my own reading of things. But they’re being called a nation within a nation. I take that to mean a cultural community of people, not an actual geographical nation.
So what differentiates the Quebecois from other Canadians? Language? Not really — there are many languages spoken within Quebec. Shared origins? No, not that either? A shared history? In some cases yes, but not for all. The only common thread that applies to every and all Quebecois is where they live…Quebec. So, once again, what differentiates them from the other provinces? Are people from Idaho a nation, because they live in and share the culture of Idaho?
I am sorry if I offended you — that definitely wasn’t my intent. I just would really like to know how, in this motion, they’re defining “Quebecois.” This whole motion was subject to so, so many changes and adjustments for semantics as to render it to the point where I really don’t think too many people know WHAT the hell was meant by it.
But, as I initially mentioned, if they’re to be called a nation, it really doesn’t matter to me all that much.
grumpy realist
Well, they all speak a version of French and freak out those of us tourists who know French and French history. What’s this accent? WTF are all these fleurs-de-lys hanging around?! Don’t you guys know the Bourbons aren’t around any more?!
Rather disconcerting, once you realize that they split off from Franch before two of the major defining points of French history (the Revolution and Napoleon.)
Tax Analyst
That is good news, John. And since others have already made the snarky remarks about “blaming Clinton” that came to mind when I first saw your post I guess I’ll just say “thanks” for the small injection of a positive news item into my day. Aw, hell…I really did like Tulkinghorn’s OJ/Bush/good works comment.
t. jasper parnell
I wasn’t offended in the slightest. It is rather that the idea of a “nation” is fairly complicated and, so all manner of theorists of nationalism, all are artificial constructs steming neither from some organic historical development, shared ethnic identity, or whathave you. Are or ought the Basques be a nation within a nation? Should India have been partitioned? When the US absorbed Texas, what was the proper role for the Tejanos? and so on.
Daniel DiRito
See a thoughtful, original video set to a James Blunt song about the famous Oscar Wilde character…Dorian Gray…that offers a reminder on how important it is to get tested for HIV and that life needn’t stop if one is positive…here:
http://www.thoughttheater.com
The Other Steve
How will the drug companies ever find an incentive to find a cure for AIDS, if they can’t make billions of dollars off the children suffering from the disease?
This is grossly unfair!
GotWolfy
Krista
Personally the only people i have seen talk about us being a “Nation” was the media. Nobody i know even mentioned it except to say that it scored good political point against the bloc and helped the Conservative. What we are being called is not that important. What’s important is what we can do. And this motion did not change the scope of our jurisdiction.
I personally think the conservative would be the perfect party if the werent so gun ho on War and Law and Order. Law and Order Type are always scary Cause there is no telling what they will do to get that law and order.
Plus they seem to be unable to see that Afganistan is on the process of being lost. If the American dont start puting more troop in we will not be able to do anything to stop the Taliban from coming back, and a lot of Canadian will die for nothing.
It’s not really hard to grasp the only way to support our troop is to give them a clear, practical and honorable mission and give them the training and equipement they need to acheive it.
No showing the dead and bying ribbon is not the way to do so.