In the Washington Post today, Former UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke is only half right:

Until a vaccine is found -- and that is probably more than a decade away -- we must focus on prevention and treatment....

...Only effective prevention strategies can stop the spread of AIDS. Yet it is precisely here that current policies have failed most seriously. In the long chain of actions required to stop the spread of AIDS, attack on all fronts is necessary. But on one vital front, the world health community has been shamefully quiet for two decades: testing and detection. Because of legitimate concerns about confidentiality and the risk of stigmatization, testing has always been voluntary, and it has been systematically played down as an important component of the effort.

The results are predictable -- and fatal: According to U.N. figures, over 90 percent of all those who are HIV-positive in the world do not know their status. Yet there has never been a serious and sustained campaign to get people to be tested. That means that over 90 percent of the roughly 12,000 people around the world who will be infected today -- just today! -- will not know it until roughly 2013. That's plenty of time for them to spread it further, infecting others, who will also spread it, and so on. No wonder we are losing the war against AIDS: In no other epidemic in modern history has detection been so downgraded.

Of course, testing and detection are only worthwhile if the treatment is made available. But when the Bush Administration gets on its high horse of perverted moral judgment and refuses aid to entire nations because they support, or have organizations advocating for support of, reproductive rights, millions of people are being categorically refused access to treatment by the United States.

Mr. Holbrooke rightly points out that the only true victory over HIV/AIDS will be a vaccine.

But when we have Republicans beholden to pseudo-religious fanatics who oppose effective cures for diseases that affect sexually active people, will the United States even help make available any future cure for HIV/AIDS?

Or will the "culture of life" continue to advocate death for all people who are not like them?

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