A timely Washington Post OP-ED
“There are approximately 32 million people outside of the United States living with HIV/AIDS. Since 2003, America has extended a helping hand to these individuals by spending more than $15 billion on the largest international health commitment ever to fight a single disease. Unfortunately, as we open our wallets to fund lifesaving treatments to those living with HIV/AIDS overseas, we will not open our doors.
Today, HIV is the only medical condition that renders people inadmissible to the United States. In fact, we are just one …

Three snippets of information selected from today’s news.
Snippet I
Clinical trials are often controversial when they take place in developing countries where there is a risk that participants do not always understand what they are taking part in or where there is a danger that once the trial is over, they will be left alone to deal with possible side effects.

Rating 3.00 out of 5

Following up on the difficulty to produce efficient and appropriate advertising material promoting safe sex in the mainstream media, here are two ads based on the same imagery. On the left, a Stanfield’s ad for a line of underwear, on the right a Terence Higgins Trust ongoing prevention campaign aiming at rising awareness of STIs.

What is interesting would be to know which audience each poster is aiming at and which audience is really responding. Trendy fashion designers like Calvin Klein and D&G have always played with homoeroticism, and despite the …

It was quite a surprise to see the traffic to this blog suddenly jump from about 100 visits to more than 600 in one day after the post on discrimination in the toilets. Looking through the traffic statistics collected whilst people browse the web (thanks to the Big Brother widget embedded in WordPress), I could see that some people came to the previous post through fellow bloggers Matt and Elizabeth, but most of them came from Stumble Upon where I also bookmark each posting.
What could so suddenly drive people …

Hong Nam Katoye
(Toilets for Katoye)

Matt, Bangkok Lost Boy and fellow blogger, posted on the recently introduced toilets for Katoye in Thailand. I specifically use the Thai word as there is no satisfactory translation in English or other western languages. Transvestite, transsexual, third sex can never encompass the real nature and complexity of the Thai Katoye, especially for outsiders as Matt’s writes:
“It’s difficult for an outsider to really comprehend because there is some conflict between whether ladyboys should be viewed as women or a third sex.”
Matt’s post is interesting because …