In the past six months we’ve heard a couple grand and divergent pronouncements regarding two of the world’s deadliest diseases. David Baltimore recently waxed hopeless on the prospect of finding an HIV vaccine, in what amounts to a sober echo of Chris Rock’s resigned vision of the future:
"Yo, man, you weren't at work yesterday. What's up?''
''My AlDS is acting up."
''You know, when the weather get like this, my AlDS just pop up."
''But l took some Robitussin. l'm fine now!''
Conversely, opponents of malaria aren’t blinking as of yet. Indeed, they’re digging in for a fight. In October, in front of 300 of the globe’s leading malaria experts, Melinda Gates delivered a message of almost scandalous optimism: “The only way to end death malaria is to end malaria,” she boomed. The London Observer chronicles the response:
What she meant, and it provoked gasps from her audience, was 'end' as in 'eradicate' - known as the 'e' word in the malaria community because of its almost taboo status, so improbably, unscientifically dreamy does the task appear.
