Who needs fancy-pants scientists when we can just refer to the well-respected Uganda AIDS report? Let's just forget about the reality that 1 in 5 women in South Africa, a country that has the highest rates of HIV in the world, will be raped. Don't even give it a second thought that many traditional African doctors tell people to cure themselves by raping children and old women. Why let real world realities get in the way of politics?
"The biennial conference, with 17,000 delegates, is more political rally than scientific meeting and bears huge significance for those involved in the fight against HIV/Aids.
The US government has sent only a fraction of its usual contingent of scientists, pleading cost - 50 instead of the 236 who attended the last event in Barcelona in 2002.
She [Dr DeAngelis, editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association] pointed out that the trip would have been paid for by the American Medical Association, not the US government. "It is an incredible example of political pettiness. It is anti-intellectual and it is interfering with scientists and the scientific process and means American government-employed scientists are not allowed to be here to share their knowledge," she said.
