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WHOA!
Yeah, let's hope they haven't screwed the pooch on this one.
I wonder when the U.N.'s IPCC will get around to also admitting that they too 'overestimated' something vitally important...
Craig Timberg, Washington PostJohannesburg, South Africa - The United Nations' top AIDS scientists plan to acknowledge this week that they have long overestimated both the size and the course of the epidemic, which they now believe has been slowing for nearly a decade, according to U.N. documents prepared for the announcement...
...The latest estimates, due to be released publicly today, put the number of annual new HIV infections at 2.5 million, a cut of more than 40% from last year's estimate, documents show...
...researchers, however, contend that persistent overestimates in the widely quoted U.N. reports have long skewed funding decisions and obscured potential lessons about how to slow the spread of HIV.
Critics also have said U.N. officials overstated the extent of the epidemic to help gather political and financial support for combating AIDS.
"There was a tendency toward alarmism, and that fit perhaps a certain fundraising agenda," said Helen Epstein, author of "The Invisible Cure: Africa, the West, and the Fight Against AIDS." "I hope these new numbers will help refocus the response in a more pragmatic way."
Yeah, let's hope they haven't screwed the pooch on this one.
I wonder when the U.N.'s IPCC will get around to also admitting that they too 'overestimated' something vitally important...