Former President Clinton in NPR Interview Describes Motivations Behind HIV/AIDS Work
Former President Clinton in an interview on NPR's "News & Notes with Ed Gordon" on Thursday said he decided to work with HIV/AIDS initiatives because at the end of his presidency he was "angry ... that even with all the money that we were then spending, so few people were getting the medicine and there was so little care in rural areas in Africa and the rest of the world." Clinton -- who on Wednesday spoke at the opening session of the 30th annual convention of the National Association of Black Journalists in Atlanta on a range of health care issues, including HIV/AIDS -- said in the NPR interview that the system the Clinton Foundation uses to provide HIV/AIDS treatment is "highly efficient, very cost-effective [and] much cheaper than any government program could ever be." According to Clinton, the foundation currently is training 700,000 physicians in Africa to provide HIV/AIDS treatment and providing medications to 110,000 people. By the end of the year, the foundation aims to be providing drugs to 300,000 people, Clinton said. "We're going to save a lot of lives. ... Africans and other people are getting their act together on AIDS," Clinton said, adding, "I want to spend the rest of my life helping to save lives, solve problems and see the future" (Gordon, "News & Notes with Ed Gordon," NPR, 8/4).
The complete segment is available online in RealPlayer.
