Dear UN Secretary General:We Must Solve the AIDS Crisis, and Here is How

Mr. Joerg Ladny

IE Brown Executive MBA Application

2/2014

Dear Mr. Secretary General

• In this talk, I hope to convince you that:

• Responding to the AIDS crisis is worth your time and economic, social, and political investment

• There are many solutions available that are not currently being implemented; this is where you should invest.

1. Overview of Problem: Why HIV is a Problem• Deadly disease of the immune system

• People die of regular infections and tumors that would have been regularly cleared by the body

• Present treatments merely suppress virus

• No vaccine to prevent transmission sexually or during pregnancy

• No cure

• Infected people are discriminated against

• Presently, 34 million people globally have HIV

• Since discovered, has caused the death of 30 million people

1. Overview of Problem: Why HIV is a Problem

2. Overview of Problem: Who HIV Impacts

3. Overview of Problem: Challenges to Resolving HIV• Genetic Resistance: Inability of Treating HIV because the

Virus Mutates

• Sexual Transmission: Spread through a basic human need

• Lack of Education: About Transmission and Treatment

• Lack of Awareness of Illness: Lack of Testing

• Lack Access to Treatment

• Lack of Funding for Research

• Stigma against HIV patients

4. Responses to HIV We Need: Government• E.g. CDC and USAID in the USA, UNAIDS at the UN

• Increased funding for research to prevent genetic resistance

• Increased funding for Health Education in primary and secondary schools

• Increased funding for opportunities for treatment for those who are infected

• Increased accessibility of cheap testing options

• Increased funding for research for vaccines and cures

• Initiatives to prevent stigma against patients with HIV

5. Responses to HIV We Need: Business• E.g. Gates Foundation

• Improving incentive structures so that it is profitable to research HIV (vs. drugs for baldness)• Overcome resistance

• Find vaccines

• Find cures

• Increased funding for Health Education in communities

• Improving incentive structures so that it is profitable for pharmaceutical companies to produce HIV drugs for treatment in developing countries

• Creating new devices to cheaply test for HIV in resource poor settings

6. Responses to HIV We Need: Non-Profits• E.g. Partners in Health, Boston, MA & Haiti & Rwanda

• Community based treatment programs so as to deliver treatments where there is no government infrastructure

• Emphasis on Health Education and Prevention of Infection

• Activism to shame pharmaceutical companies into producing drugs that are needed for survival (HIV) vs. cosmetics (balding, better erections)

• Advocacy for increased access to testing to prevent transmission

• Initiatives to prevent stigma against patients with HIV

7. Responses to HIV We Need: Everyday Citizens• Activism to encourage governments to fund AIDS

treatments for poor and disadvantaged people (e.g. ACT UP; AIDS Action)

• Cross-cultural solidarity movements to advocate for the rights of persons with AIDS (e.g. World AIDS day)

• Bringing together scientists to collaborate on new cures (e.g. AIDS cure project)

8. Innovative Solutions We Need• Using social media to multiply the social effects of protests

and activism

• Crowd-sourcing fundraising for novel research cures (i.e. kickstarter.com)

• Redistribution efforts to bring medical advances to the developing world

References and Further Reading• UN AIDS

(http://www.unaids.org/en/dataanalysis/datatools/aidsinfo/ )

• HIV/AIDS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV/AIDS)

• http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/us/politics/01aids.html?_r=0

• www.actupny.org/

• www.aidsaction.org/

• www.actupny.org/ACP/ACP.html