Pink is for Breast Cancer Awareness - ever known anyone with that disease? There are other colors, too. There are also dozens of organizations, some of them decades old, who don't have colored ribbons but do have foundatons, research programs, lobbying groups and demonstrations - what else would you call the MS Walkathon? The March of Dimes? You're old enough: remember carboard "iron lung" coin banks for collecting research money for polio?

In this country, the per capita incidence of HIV infection is still low enough that the victims can be counted, and quilts made... and they're closest to the source of the drug therapies and most of the major research.

Meanwhile, in sub-Saharan Africa...

Yes, AIDS is preventable. All it takes is education, and a will to abandon dangerous behaviors - once one learns what they are. That doesn't do a damn thing for the people who already have the disease - and in case you haven't noticed, sexual orientation has absolutely no relevance to susceptibility. Averaged over the planet, the vast majority have been infected through heterosexual contact.

Ignorance is preventable, too. All it takes is education, and a will to abandon dangerous behaviors.

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