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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 itself is subject to incredible stigma.

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.

AIDS is a global problem and there should be a global solution found by the entire international community. It is really scary to see and imagine our world fall into pieces because we refuse to share and put in the common vestiges of our civilizations.

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

We must encourage people to get educated, to get tested, to get involved in the fight against AIDS.

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.

The male elites that run most countries are exceedingly uncomfortable with the subject of AIDS because it's a sexually transmitted disease.

To tell you the truth, I'm shocked, as I travel across this country, at how little people know or don't want to know about HIV/AIDS. There are a lot of people who don't know that HIV is one thing and AIDS is another. Those people just think it's one big old alphabet of a disease.

HIV AIDS is a disease with stigma. And we have learned with experience, not just with HIV AIDS but with other diseases, countries for many reasons are sometimes hesitant to admit they have a problem.