Dirty Dishes	Dirty Dishes Archive

When Dawn was in college, at a prestigious Ivy League skool, students of government were taught about "captured agency syndrome." Any agency founded to regulate and control an industry or activity soon finds itself populated with industry shills and working-- at least partially-- in service of the very entity it was created to monitor. A more generalize rule states that insitutions inevitably self-corrupt.

Something akin to CAS seems to be at work throughout much of the AIDS industry. AIDS service organizations have sometimes obliquely voiced disappointment that new-- highly successful-- treatments mean that their prevention efforts are made more challenging and that no longer can they appeal to imminent death and ubiquitous fear to motivate people. Cry Dawn a river.

View our poll archive

But surely, the most tasteless example of corruption in the AIDS industry was on display this past World's AIDS Day (December 1).

Ronald Trahan Associates, acting as publicists for Roche Pharmaceuticals (makers of the anti-HIV drugs Fuzeon, Invirase, and Viracept) recently tickled press outlets with the following delightful squib: "With World's AIDS Day fast approaching, I wanted to get in touch with some story ideas surrounding this event. This year's event is even more exciting given that we are celebrating 20 years of AIDS...."

Though remarkably insensitive, the ham-handed press release does at least underscore that incurable diseases requiring lifetime ingestion of over-priced drugs are, indeed, something for Big Pharma to "celebrate"....