Emma Thompson Quotes

Early in 1986, the World Health Organization in Geneva still regarded AIDS as an ailment of the promiscuous few.

AIDS occupies such a large part in our awareness because of what it has been taken to represent. It seems the very model of all the catastrophes privileged populations feel await them.

If Carter had been there when the AIDS crisis came up, it would have been a whole different story. It could have been treated like a legitimate disease.

In Africa through the 1990s, with notable exceptions in Senegal and Uganda, nearly all the ruling powers denied they had a problem with AIDS.

AIDS is the biggest challenge, the major disaster facing this country and we would have wished for something more specific and far-reaching.

The media in America is not covering American AIDS very much. They're covering African AIDS as if somehow miraculously it's all stopped here. Well, it hasn't, and the one thing they're not saying about Africa is that all those people are going to die; there's no way these people can be saved - none.

Anyone that's involved in development has discovered that all the good work that's been done in development has been undone by the AIDS emergency.

To me, AIDS is an international epidemic and every country can be affected by it. Therefore, it can be discussed on an international level. Unfortunately, AIDS doesn't require a visa.

AIDS is a complex situation that's sure to bring out the best and the worst in people.

When World AIDS Day was first observed in 1988, there was no truly effective treatment for what was almost always a deadly disease.

HIV/AIDS has no boundaries.

One out of every 100 American men is HIV positive. The rate of infection has reached epidemic proportions in 40 developing nations.

I fight AIDS because it's a killer disease, destroys the human race in all fields.

I thought, wait and see—maybe it [AIDS] is not as hot as some are making it appear. I definitely admit to a gross underestimate. We're running scared.

I believe UNAIDS' provocative leadership has been critical in addressing the AIDS epidemic and converting it from a death sentence to a chronic health condition.

I actually came out the year that AIDS hit the front pages. So there was this mixed feeling about it - excitement that life's finally begun, but it was completely tied up with mortality and danger and politics.

AIDS is a shared truth - it's not selective in its wrath.

I remember my first friend who got sick. It was 1981, and the disease was called the gay cancer. I don't think the word 'AIDS' came out until '84. I just remember it being terrifying as more people got sick. We didn't know how you could catch it, you heard all kinds of crazy things.

Living with AIDS is like always having the sword of Damocles over your head. The disease is scarier than death itself. The disease is so messy, so devastating, so pervasive. It robs you of everything you hold dear.

I had seen AIDS patients in India and Africa, and knowing that people were dying even though drugs existed that could help them was shattering for me.

If a country denies it has AIDS, that country will inevitably become an even greater victim.

I believe Aids is the most important issue we face, because how we treat the poor is a reflection of who we are as a people.

Some countries that I go to are still trying to deny that it's happening. In India, 2.1 million people are living with HIV AIDS. India manufactures most of the drugs that are used to cure HIV around the world, which is an amazing, amazing fact that most people don't know.

AIDS was allowed to happen. It is a plague that need not have happened. It is a plague that could have been contained from the very beginning.

America's most dangerous diseases have developed an immunity to politics. We suffer not from a failure of political organization or power, but a failure of love.