Sometimes it's difficult for me to believe that this is my life. Part 2.

Here's an excellent article from the March 12, 2007 issue of the New Yorker written by Michael Specter that you all should read. It focuses on the Denial of AIDS and its deleterious effects on the efforts to combat the pandemic, particularly in South Africa. One particularly memorable quote to coax you to read the article:

"AIDS denial plays a corrosive role in the health policies of many countries, but South Africa provides the most extreme and enduring example. Five and a half million of the country’s 48 million people are infected by H.I.V. Today, only 200,000 receive AIDS drugs. In 2003, the South African government issued a comprehensive AIDS policy, but it wasn’t implemented. Mbeki has never disavowed his view that H.I.V. medicines are aimed at maiming Africans, and he’s never publicly acknowledged that H.I.V. causes AIDS."

The piece also contains an fantastic opening anecdote about a modern-day Sangoma (traditional Zulu healer) who claims that the cure for AIDS was given to him in a dream by his long-dead grandfather. The grandson now has a storefront in downtown Durban, which I am now hoping to check out in the coming weeks.

The article can be downloaded as a .pdf by clicking here. Let me know if that doesn't work; I'd be happy to send you the article directly.