>Dragan,
>
>The main incidence of AIDS in Brazil comes from IV drug abuse and unprotected male-male sex.
>
>I therefore see plenty of opportunity for $40m worth of campaign that need not involve prostitution.
>
>The main objection seems to be that self-described "AIDS activists" want prostitution normalized and see the US moralizing as contrary to that goal. I have no comment about their goal (after all prostitution has been normalized in New Zealand) but would be interested to see why these activists feel that normalizing prostitution will be more effective than $40m worth of other campaigning.
I presume there's more in the ultimatum than the article had. I remember there have been some issues about Brazil's parmaceutical companies providing cheap HIV medication to some African countries, and thre's been some arm-twisting from here that Brazil should sign some sort of copyright-on-medications contract so that they would have to raise the price by a factor of at least two, if they were allowed to keep the production in the first place. Not sure this was mentioned this time, but I'm sure it wasn't completely off the table.