David Munar's blog

The Nigerians sitting behind me on the early morning bus ride to Centro Banamex passionately debated human rights for commercial sex workers and men who have sex with men. 

Others on the bus shuffled papers and thumbed the program book in preparation for their long day ahead.

Today is my last day in Mexico City and I'm tired and filled with emotions.   read more »

Despite the debates, disagreements, and challenges, there was one theme that virtually everyone from the United States could agree on: It's time for the U.S. government to create and properly implement a National AIDS Strategy.

Senator Barack Obama issued a statement endorsing the creation of such a strategy and U.S. Representative Barbara Lee spoke passionately about it. Even Dr. Kevin Fenton, head of CDC's HIV/STD/TB Division, said the agency supports the bold idea.

A poster presentation, comparing the AIDS-related public records and statements of Sen. Obama and Senator John McCain, noted that McCain has remained silent on this non-partisan issue.

A distinguished panel of experts, including Rep. Lee, at the Black AIDS Institute's press conference noted the urgent need for the U.S. to bring more rigor and focus to its anti-HIV related activities.  read more »

Though times are starting to change, machismo still reins in Mexico as firmly as the tortilla staple diet and devotion to la Virgen de Guadalupe.

Threaded into the national identity of modern Mexico is a strong tradition of sexism, homophobia, and adherence to strict gender roles.

This is the country after all that embraces its bravado breakfast of "huevos rancheros" and its male-dominated cowboy traditions.

Whether and how this predominantly Catholic country of 109 million people moves past such institutional and cultural biases promises important lessons for the rest of Latin America and, indeed, the world.

Slowly, progress is being made. Speaking at the International AIDS Conference's opening plenary, President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa mentioned the word homofobia for the first time. The national government sponsored a groundbreaking campaign to mitigate homophobia in targeted neighborhoods of Mexico City. And a longstanding legal prohibition against a woman's right to choose was recently, and narrowly, repealed in Mexico City, though anti-choice laws prevail in most regions of the country.
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I guess I should let it go but I'm still annoyed that CDC and JAMA officials treated the roll out of new HIV incidence estimates like Steve Jobs launching a new iPhone.

This product launch offers "consumers" scarcely any new fun features or software improvements, and if we allow the alarming new data to fall into oblivion, it will also fail to give the fight against HIV/AIDS any meaningful utility.

For months, AIDS advocates called for the public release of the data, which CDC admitted this weekend it had finalized in October 2007. An earlier release might have given the Bush administration second thoughts about requesting a $1 million decrease for CDC's domestic HIV prevention programs; spurred presidential candidates to talk more readily about HIV/AIDS in the U.S.; persuaded media pundits and debate moderators to quiz candidates on plans to end the epidemic; led Congress to pass even one of the dozen domestic HIV prevention bills languishing on Capitol Hill or motivated appropriators to finally boost HIV prevention funding or end long-held restrictions on how funding can be used.

No, instead the cult of embargoes prevailed, with no account to the burgeoning public health crisis the very paper in question describes.  read more »

As tens of thousands of people from all corners of the world descend on Mexico City this week for the 17^th International AIDS Conference, Mexico is dressing up much like a celebrity adorning a red ribbon before the Oscars.

This is the Olympics of AIDS and we’ve just landed in Beijing.

At Centro Banamex, the 19,000 square-feet facility hosting the conference, signs were going up all day as exhibitors, media, and participants filed in to leave tons (literally) of palm cards, posters, reports, and flyers intended for destinations far and wide. Nearly everyone left with conference totes and the 420-page conference programme.

An enormous tent city housing a food court and the “global village” of community and charity events was erected behind Banamex in the middle of an expansive horseracing stadium.

At the media center, staff scrambled to re-establish an Internet connection for a bank of two dozen computer terminals awaiting the legions of journalists that will be covering the conference.  read more »

For more than a year, U.S. federal officials have attempted—sometimes in vain—to quell rumors that the number of new HIV infections in the United States is on the rise. The Washington Blade first broke the story in November 2007, reporting that the CDC was poised to raise the official estimate for the number of HIV infections believed to occur in the United States to a range as high as 58,000 to 63,000 per year—a greater than 50 percent increase over the current estimate of 40,000 annual HIV infections.

By December 2007, World AIDS Day media coverage in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg News, The Associated Press and other outlets amplified the leaks. They also described growing frustration among AIDS community advocates with delays in making the important research findings public.
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