Money Alone Cannot Fix AIDS Epidemic, Letter to Editor Says

Money "in and of itself" will not solve the AIDS crisis in Africa, and "$2 billion or $20 billion -- pick a number -- is worthless if those funds do not reach the dying patients and vulnerable communities who need them," Ward Brehm, an author and businessman who frequently travels to East Africa, writes in a Minneapolis Star Tribune letter to the editor in response to a recent Star Tribune editorial. The Star Tribune's perspective needs "considerable focusing," according to Brehm, who has visited Africa 13 times over the last 10 years. Instead of showing a "lamentable willingness to let avoidable suffering continue," as the Star Tribune editorial said, Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) has a "tremendous heart for the devastation of AIDS in Africa," Brehm says. Coleman "insists that institutions and policies must be firmly in place to assure that the allocated funds can be well spent. To demand less would be irresponsible for a senator," Brehm says, concluding, "We can all agree that the AIDS epidemic is a horror of unimaginable proportions, but a cure without intentional thought and accountability never, ever works" (Brehm, Minneapolis Star Tribune, 10/2).