Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Audrey Kitagawa: Our responsibility with respect to this AIDS issue is huge because AIDS is not only Africa, AIDS is everywhere. And the consequence of this epidemic is going to be huge because it's going to have many implications with respect to the many orphan children, with respect to the death of people who hold positions as teachers, as parents, as police officers, in every sector of employment, and these people are also our brothers, our sisters, our mothers, our fathers, our children, our relatives, so they're all part of the human family that is suffering from a disease that is going to have far-reaching consequences for all of us. So it is a huge responsibility that governments as well as everyone on earth has to start seriously looking at and start taking responsibility for and planning for, and we mustn't be taken by surprise since we've known that this disease, and the consequences of this disease, for many years now, but we also have to mobilize the political will to be able to implement those systems and structures and institutions that would help us to be able to deal with the consequences of this disease.

by Audrey Kitagawa

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Benjamin Fahrer: A very big responsibility. AIDS in Africa, people are dying in Africa because of AIDS. We are a global people. We should take it up on ourselves to see all people on this planet worthy, that have worth, that have value and something to contribute to the whole. These are our brothers and sisters, our friends in Africa dying because of this epidemic, because of the situation. So, our responsibility is a global responsibility. It is our responsibility to help and to contribute in a way towards a solution in whichever way we can. This is a huge problem, a huge obstacle for Africa to overcome but also the world to overcome for it’s not just in Africa, it’s all over the world. And we have information and ways to fix this problem. We also must see the cause of this problem, where it is originated from? And how people had been oppressed by not having access to certain commons within their environment? We must allow to these people to have the resources and not be isolated, not be taken as Africa being separate and that we should leave it behind or not help. And quarantine Africa in which it’s happening in some villages and politically is happening as well. It is a huge issue and huge responsibility for all.

by Benjamin Fahrer

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Benson Venegas: Poverty and diseases is not poor people fault. It's something that we share responsibility, all the people that live around this world. To advance in attention of chronic, pandemic, infectious disorders that [inaudible] public health, we need to share the responsibility. There is no boundaries for some of these diseases, and we need to act jointly in a responsible way to redefine solutions to these problems. So, we need to get medicine to every one in a universal way. We need to really change the ethics of the way medicine is being distributed and the way people have access to these medicines that can really cure, or at least minimize the effects, the secondary effects, of diseases like AIDS.

by Benson Venegas

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Beverly Schwartz:

by Beverly Schwartz

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Bianca Jagger: Answertext will be available soon.

by Bianca Jagger

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Bill Joy: AIDS is not just a problem for Africa. But it’s particularly poignant in Africa because in several countries, many countries, it’s decimating a generation. Each disease has a pattern of transmission. In Africa certain social behaviors have led to perhaps a much worse demographic outcome, much more human suffering than almost anywhere else. It’s a tragedy of whole families dissolving and many many orphans. These things are really troubling to us. Some people I worked with at Scott, Bobby Shriver, I’ve been working on this data AIDS trade Africa campaign more recently on the Red campaign, Red for Africa sponsored by companies like American Express. I think we have to raise our awareness of how much work needs to be done to solve this problem in Africa. I am strongly supportive of the Red campaign and that whole idea of raising people’s awareness and doing the kind of research that’s necessary to make the drugs that can use to really both come up with a vaccine and hopefully also a cure. We have ability today with very expensive cocktails to hold AIDS in check but the drugs are still too expensive and for most people in the poorer countries to use. So we have a lot more to do and hopefully in the next decade, say, we’ll have much better ways of both preventing and even curing AIDS, not just at great expense stopping it in it’s tracks.

by Bill Joy

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Bora Cosic: On the first sight something like this seems strange, how can I be responsible for an event that is happening so far away and how am I spouse to do something about it? However, after thinking about it and gaining some information about all kind of events happening in global pharmacy industry, and which malversations are there happening, things appear in different light. Off course I can’t claim anything for sure, but it can be seen clearly that big Pharmacy manufactures are able of finding a methods to sell necessary medicine against aids much more expensive on African continent. By doing so they increase possibilities of aids. What could, big, free, brave, etc. world do about it? Well probably in some way boycott such kind of industry, there medicine etc. But it’s very hard to assure something like that in this place and in this kind of discussion, which is general and global.

by Bora Cosic

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Brian J. Weller:

by Brian J. Weller

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Catherine David: I think that we should stop to distinguish between “them” and “us”. It seems to me as if AIDS in Africa is one tsunami per month. If I come back to that question of tsunami, it is not the only standard and possible reference; it is rather to be effective in the media. The whole world was occupied for a certain time with the Tai tsunami. It seems to me that once again Africa is permanently in a dramatic situation, multiplied because it is not linked in the same way, it does not produce any image like others do and we let them pass, we let the people die or we did not care much about them, which is not better. Possible negotiations in order to make tritherapies available for every ill person are very slow to get off the ground. Once again, it seems to me as if nothing is going to change when we imagine that there are “us” and “them”. I believe the humanity in the 21st century is concerned. It is an extremely serious epidemic and I believe that one part of humanity, it is furthermore not even true, there are not only Africans that die of AIDS. But it seems as if we could begin not to distinguish anymore between “them” and “us”. I believe that AIDS is a very serious disease and there is a high mortality and it is a crime not to assist people in danger. It seems to me that it is necessary not to make any difference between “them” and “us” because it is the whole world which is simply affected and everybody is not yet aware of it.

by Catherine David

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

China Keitetsi: Our responsibility should not only think that the disease is in Africa and is killing Africans. I think it's only to reach towards because as you know the distances from world to countries is becoming shorter and shorter and so many immigration from here to there. But I also feel that for a couple of years back. I think developed countries have begun to really give medicine, allowing the other country to make medicine for free, even giving money funds for those who live with HIV/AIDS. For example, in Rwanda there is one boy which I know, who is getting medicine for free. And some money is also put on his account. But we shouldn’t also forget that AIDS is the big killer disease. There are hundreds of people in Africa dying from small disease - hunger. There are children who die from malaria. There are children who die from diarrhea. There are children who are dying in big number because of other disease and I think we shouldn't only focus on AIDS, but I think we should also focus on all those diseases which could be cured. For example, when a person cuts her finger, she could die because there is no ambulance to take her to the hospital. That is a small disease, but is killing hundreds and thousands of people. And I think we should begin to look at AIDS as our disease, and not African disease because, what if it comes here? Because many Africans are running out from their country coming here, so if we don't act now, it could be too late. And also to date, many, many mothers are losing their babies from HIV, and hundreds and hundreds of children are left with no parents. Can you imagine a generation of so many children growing up with no parents? I think we have to do more than we're already doing today.

by China Keitetsi

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Cornel West: Dostoevsky says that the responsibility of each and every one of us is heavy, is burdensome, but it is desirable and must be met. But, when we talk about AIDS in Africa, we talk about AIDS around the world but especially Africa. It is our major responsibility to do all that we can to wipe out this epidemic, to cast the limelight on it to come up with some kind of vaccine; to call in the question sometimes the narrow interests of the pharmaceutical industry that has not put a premium on search for such a vaccine; and to accent, to promote the efforts of very gallant and courageous human beings around the world who have been highlighting the AIDS epidemic both in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the States and Europe as well. One would hope that governments would spend more money in searching for the vaccine. One would think that leaders from South Africa, where so much more leadership is needed to hit this issue head on, to the United States where not enough focus on AIDS has taken place. The European governmental officials recognize that our destiny inextricably woven with the destiny of our fellow human beings who have been victimized by the AIDS epidemic and plague.

by Cornel West

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Dedi Baron: Answertext will be available soon.

by Dedi Baron

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Donato Bayu Bay Bumacas: Yes, all of us can do something to contribute to the AIDS problem in Africa. However, in my point of view much responsibilities should be on the hands of the African people to solve their own problems. We can do as much, but the African people themselves should do more to solve their AIDS problem. But we should not also ignore the fact that we who are not part of Africa can help Africans solve their own problem. So, therefore, it’s more of caring other people like we care ourselves. So, let’s be connected and help each other. Help Africans solve their own problems and not only Africa. We should work together, open our hearts, share our resources, share what we have to contribute to the solution of the global problems not only in Africa, because I think AIDS is not only confined in Africa. The AIDS issue is a worldwide issue especially, not only in the Third World countries, even especially in the First World countries. So, therefore, we should really encourage the spirit of service and caring for one another and contribute, solve especially the AIDS problem in Africa, in other places not only Africa.

by Donato Bayu Bay Bumacas

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Dritëro Kasapi: Hi, Judith. I think the responsibility is enormous. Great. The irony of the whole thing is that we actually hold the key to the solution or to the partial solution of the problem, and it’s basically just creating cheaper drugs, preventive drugs and distributing them, and we are protecting our economies with that, and that is relating to the question just before about egoism. That is where we need to understand that not all in the world is about us. It’s about someone else also and even if we feel that just the idea that we actually have the power to create these drugs and distribute them in Africa, to millions of people but we don’t do it because we want to protect our medical industry, tells me very clearly that we don’t take the responsibility right, and that is where I think we as people that vote that we need to fight to put this question into the agenda and say, "Okay, we are ready to give part of our wealth and risk our medical industries and prevent the development of AIDS in Africa and many other countries in the world where it’s becoming a growing and growing problem, and at the same time, we’re to find a cure to that."

by Dritëro Kasapi

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Eliane Potiguara: The problem with AIDS is a very complex one and now that AIDS is also spreading to indigenous people...like all those other infectuos diseases...I’m concerned, I’m genuinely concerned. In my opinion AIDS is an imposed disease, like many diseases have been imposed on the human being. This virus has been imposed to opress the people, in a certain form to suffocate the people and in a certain form to eradicate the people. Power is a very bad thing and it has a very perverse malignity behind it. Honestly, I think that there once has been a desire, in Brazil and in the whole world, to eradicate indigenous people. So I think that a policy that eradicates its peoples by AIDS, by violence, by wars or by whatsoever, by overthrowing the structure and even by negating the identity of its peoples, a policy that eradicates is the worse policy of all. It is the responsibility of the government and the responsibility of every people to combat, to combat those eradicating systems of which form they may be. So in my opinion AIDS should be everybody’s responsibility in relation to Africa and in relation to every country in this world.

by Eliane Potiguara

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Eliot Weinberger: Well, obviously, we have a tremendous responsibility in the developed world to alleviate suffering as much as possible. I think the question of AIDS in Africa is really one of, now that there have been tremendous medical advances in combating AIDS, is of course making these drugs available to the people who can’t afford them in Africa. And one wishes that we lived in a world where a major priority was getting inexpensive drugs to the people in Africa and not merely getting armaments to corrupt governments elsewhere. But, I think one needs to – drug companies are making vast profits, profits unimagined in their past and one needs to have pressure on them from below and from above to make these drugs available in Africa and also pressure to create a distribution system where I think -- one of the scandals of the current administration in the United States is that they appropriated huge amount of money, most of which hasn’t been spent, and a large portion of it, I think a third of it, is going towards the completely absurd notion of abstinence to education, which has proven to be completely worthless. And in fact, some recent studies have shown that abstinence to education actually increases sexual activity. So, the problem is combating AIDS in Africa without trying to inflict some completely archaic Christian fundamentalist morality on to what is a health problem and what is not a moral problem. AIDS should be seen entirely as a health problem and not anything else.

by Eliot Weinberger

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Elisabet Sahtouris: And Judith you ask how big is our responsibility for AIDS in Africa. In a sense because I'm very concerned with healthy global family, when any part of the world suffers from a major epidemic or poverty or any other problem, we should all be concerned with it. I remember reading around 1991 a very interesting article in the New Yorker magazine in America, in which it referred to AIDS as the revenge of the rain forest. And what it was talking about was that when we go in and disrupt the natural ecosystems, we can create tremendous problems because some of the beings from those ecosystems dislodged from their usual habitats can cause a great deal of trouble in other ecosystems when they are moved around. So, if developers cut down rain forests in Africa for example, where the AIDS virus was in some kind of balance with the rest of the ecosystem and they jump on those people as life boats, the AIDS viruses, and get transferred to other places outside of their natural ecosystem; they can cause what we call virulent problems, the word virulent coming from virus. In Africa, cows have been imported as an alien animal and they are very destructive there. They come from another ecosystem but in Africa they are very destructive. The trample ground, they make pass that rain water runs often, they create desertification. Now the tsetse fly was the last defense of Africa's ecosystems against the invasion of foreign cows because they killed the cows with the illness where as when they bit native hoofed animals such as antelope and wilderbeasts in Africa, they do not get sick from the tsetse fly. So, again it's a case of when you disrupt ecosystems, you cause problems. Of course, the World Bank and developers, other developers, in Africa are now making huge chemical warfare on the tsetse fly and that kills other species. So, we tend to escalate the problems that way. In any case, I think that everyone in the world should be feeling responsible when anyone in the world is suffering and that's my basic answer to your question.

by Elisabet Sahtouris

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Ervin Laszlo: When any part of the human family suffers from disease, from poverty, the whole human family has to wake up and accept responsibility. Everybody is responsible for everybody on this planet. We are members of the crew of this particular spaceship.

by Ervin Laszlo