Michael Gerson, op-ed coumnist at the Washington Post, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, President George W. Bush’s former chief speechwriter from 2001 until June 2006, and member of the ONE Vote 08 National Advisory Board. placed a remarkable op-ed about AIDS in today’s Boston Globe.

A couple of excerpts:

“ONE OF THE most uncomfortable and encouraging conversations I’ve ever had took place a few years ago at an overcrowded AIDS testing clinic in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. A nurse had asked me if I wanted to meet one of the women using the clinic’s services. I assumed I’d be talking to someone who’d received a negative report. Speaking through an interpreter, I discovered that the young girl sitting across from me was still waiting on the result of her test. I awkwardly assured her that I wouldn’t disturb her any further. She interrupted: “A few years ago, I would never have talked to a foreigner about AIDS. But now I know that even if I’m positive, it isn’t a death sentence. Three of my friends have already been tested, and I need to know.”

This is one reason AIDS drugs, when they arrive, are such a miracle. Without the realistic hope of treatment, there is little motivation to be tested; most of us would prefer denial to hopeless certainty. And without AIDS testing, preventing the spread of the disease is difficult; denial increases risky sexual behavior…”

“Treatment and prevention, in the end, cannot be separated. And the goal of universal access to treatment seems morally unavoidable. However expensive this commitment might be, there is also a cost to letting 40 million people or more die – a cost the world should not be willing to pay. But we also need to be realistic about the nature of this commitment. Defeating AIDS will require major new efforts on prevention. And moving toward universal treatment, according to the United Nations, will require between $32 billion and $51 billion by 2010. America has done much – and still we face an ocean of need.”

Read the full piece here.