First, Jake. There is a problem with playing the blame game. First. As I stated in the OP, a lot of the infections is not trhough sex or drug use, but a child getting it from his mother. Why do they need to be punished? If you made a mistake, would you want your child to pay for it? Of course not!

Also, a lot of the women who are HIV+ sis nothing wrong. Their husbands have to leave home to work at the mines or in the cities (migrant labour is a huge problem in SA). There they sleep around, or have sex with prostitutes. They come back, and have sex with their wives. The wife is doing her msarital duty by sleeping with herhusband, and the church told her they are not allowed to use condoms (the western church) so she is infected. She gives the viirus to the baby she is still breat feeding, and to the child they create that night.

She did nothing wrong. Yet you feel she deserves no help?

And on the return on investment. I have shown in the OP that a small amount of drug companies' income come from Africa. And HIV-AIDS drugs are not the only drugs bought here. Therefor, these companies will still make huge profits, and get their return on income from the developed world (where people also get infected, but hey,. let's help them, right?)

Lastly, Jake. You say this is Africa's hole ,and we should get ourselves out. Well, that is what I say. Let us not pay the rediuicilous prices the drug companies charge. Let us get out of this hole ourselves by delcraling a emergency, and making the drugs ourselves.


Force. PAtent rights are a necesary evil. We do not live in a world where people do things for the common good. Thus companies need incentives to make drugs to make people better, and that is where patent rights come in. In the imperfect world we live in, there is no other way, I am afraid.

AH

__________________
“The subject no longer has to be mentioned by name. Someone is sick. Someone else is feeling better now. A friend has just gone back into the hospital. Another has died. The unspoken name, of course, is AIDS.”
“From the point of view of the pharmaceutical industry, the AIDS problem has already been solved. After all, we already have a drug which can be sold at the incredible price of $8, 000 an annual dose, and which has the added virtue of not diminishing the market by actually curing anyone.”