AIDS Activism Growing on Campuses

NYTimes.com: "Mr. Messac, the University of Pennsylvania medical student, explored the origins of Mr. Bush’s AIDS program in a 120-page paper, 'Lazarus at America’s Doorstep,' for his Harvard undergraduate thesis. Mr. Carel, who spent last summer working at a hospital in the rural South African village of Tugela Ferry, now studies Zulu and persuaded a visiting professor from South Africa to let him take her upper-level course on 'the political economy of AIDS.' (He had to skip Zulu class for the Emanuel protest; he said his professor understood.)

"The students have also befriended a longtime veteran of the AIDS wars, Gregg Gonsalves, who at 47 is completing his undergraduate degree in evolutionary biology on a full scholarship at Yale. Mr. Gonsalves often lectures public-health classes on what he calls “ancient history” — the work of groups like Act Up in the 1990s.

"'Theirs is not a first-person commitment, in the sense that none of them is living with H.I.V.,' Mr. Gonsalves said of the new AIDS protesters. 'It’s all based out of a sense of solidarity and social justice. I used to wonder where the next generation would come from. They’re here.'

"Inside the White House, Dr. Emanuel, for one, is not impressed. He says the students are serving up tired arguments about dollar amounts that ignore the Obama administration’s emphasis on spending money more efficiently and offering services, like circumcision, that can reduce the spread of H.I.V. While Mr. Bush emphasized AIDS and malaria, Mr. Obama is promoting a six-year, $63 billion 'global health initiative' that seeks to address a range of diseases, with emphasis on women and children."