Editorial
World AIDS crisis: Symbols not enough

A day after United Nations delegates had finished slapping themselves on their backs upon reaching new consensus on their global battle against AIDS, African countries, the ones suffering the most from the disease, were saying they had heard it all before.

"I am tired of lip service," said Koketso Rantona, an AIDS worker in Botswana, one of several nations expected to lose an entire generation to the disease.

The proposal for a global AIDS fund has already triggered three arguments:

• Who should run it? The rich countries want to keep it free of U.N. bureaucracy, rightly preferring to have some nimbler organization administer it. The poor countries favor the U.N. structure because it gives them more say.

• Prevention or treatment? So far, the commitment of most nations, including the United States, to the AIDS battle is in the comparatively cheaper prevention arena. Prevention is important; treatment can't be ducked.

You may have read a recent commentary on these pages that called upon the world's largest pharmaceutical companies to donate the expensive drug cocktails so urgently needed in poor countries.

The board chairs and CEOs, wrote Donald Berwick, should simply declare: "The earth has AIDS, and therefore we all, for now, have AIDS. Therefore, we are taking one simple action that will save millions and millions of lives."

An inspiring idea, to be sure. But like you, we're not holding our breath, either.

• How much should the rich world contribute? While U.N. leaders were discussing a global fund of $7 billion to $10 billion annually to combat the disease, the three-day General Assembly special session ended with just $700 million committed to the fund.

But the U.N. is right to set an ambitious goal, and the Bush administration should be ashamed by its spartan offering of $200 million.