More Than 100 AIDS Researchers and Advocates Perished on Downed Malaysian Jetliner

[unhappycamper]

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/more-100-aids-researchers-and-advocates-perished-shot-down-jetliner

More Than 100 AIDS Researchers and Advocates Perished on Downed Malaysian Jetliner
AlterNet / By Cliff Weathers
July 18, 2014

More than 100 AIDS experts and public health officials on their way to the International AIDS Conference in Australia were among those killed when a Malaysian jetliner was shot down over the Ukraine yesterday. Their deaths prompted an outpouring of grief from their colleagues.

“The International AIDS Society today expresses its sincere sadness at receiving news that a number of colleagues and friends en route to attend the 20th International AIDS Conference taking place in Melbourne, Australia, were on board the Malaysia Airlines MH17 flight that has crashed over Ukraine earlier today,” the group's organizers said.

Among the passengers was Glenn Thomas, a spokesman for the World Health Organization, and Joep Lange, an eminent HIV researcher from the Netherlands who was also the former president of the International AIDS society.

Lange led a campaign to expand affordable care for HIV patients in impoverished regions. He is considered an icon in the AIDS medical community.

[jakeXT]

1. Probably a lot less

Joep Lange, a former president of the International Aids Society, and at least five others headed for a biannual conference in Melbourne, were among those killed. The attack on the Boeing 777 has been blamed on Ukrainian separatists backed by the Kremlin.

Earlier reports put the toll among researchers and activists at 100, but Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, the current president of the society, dismissed that count. “It might be a little higher(than six) but not the numbers” in some reports, she said, adding: “The extent of our loss is hard to comprehend or express.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulrodgers/2014/07/19/hivaids-experts-killed-in-mh17-attack/

[unhappycamper]

2. I hope so.

Attacks against civilian aircraft should be prosecuted.