AIDS families make life-and-death decisions

Activists across the globe are concerned that the high cost of anti-AIDS drugs is forcing impoverished families with more than one HIV-positive member to make life-and-death choices. Research suggests that in developing countries, where HIV is commonly transmitted between husbands and wives and from mothers to children, whole families may be living with HIV/AIDS. The Associated Press quoted Alice Wynne-Willson of the London-based charity, ActionAid, as saying: "AIDS victims are making terrible, terrible choices of which member of their family they should keep alive." Willson said at the recent World Social Forum in India that although the prices of branded anti-AIDS drugs had been lowered by competition from generic drug manufacturers, they were still beyond the reach of the world's poor.