Bill Gates gives 9 milliion to fight aids (resumé en francais)
By DONNA GORDON BLANKINSHIP, Associated Press WriterFri May 18, 7:57 AM ET
The money will pay for eight research studies and up to three clinical trials of vaccines that have previously been tested on adults.
Pamela Barnes, president and CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based Glaser Foundation, noted the absence of children in HIV vaccine research even though nearly 14 percent of all new HIV infections are in children who contract the disease from their mothers.
"We don't want to be celebrating the discovery of an HIV vaccine and then stop and realize it's ineffective or unsafe for children," she said in a foundation statement issued this week about the grant. "We need research aimed at both children and adults and the Gates Foundation is helping make that possible."
The Glaser Foundation has helped pay for 41 studies related to pediatric HIV/AIDS research since 1988. The Gates Foundation grant will significantly expand the smaller foundation's reach, as it is nearly equal to all the money the Glaser Foundation spent on HIV/AIDS research between 1988 and 2007.
The Gates Foundation has spent nearly $500 million on initiatives to prevent the spread of HIV and for research into potential HIV/AIDS vaccines. It also has spent millions of dollars to improve access to childhood vaccines, develop other new vaccines and improve the chances babies will survive beyond their early years.___
On the Web:
Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation: http://www.pedaids.org/
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: http:http://www.gatesfoundation.org
Straight talk from Hort /Franc-parler de Hort
If Bill and Melinda Gates are really interested in helping africans why don't they use this money to help reduce malnutrition, or impove the deplorable sanitary conditions in africa which is really what african people need. The African people are not dying from aids. What they are dying from is drinking dirty water and all the other ills which go along with underdevelopment and poverty. Focusing on aids research simply means that the money stays right here in the West and next to nothing actually goes to Africa. This kind of strategy gets very good media coverage, and the west gets to pat itself on the back for its philanthropy but in essence doesn't provide any tangible solutions for lifting african people from the poverty which the West has imposed on them.