40,000,000

Today is World AIDS Day. Today, 40 million people are living on this planet with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Today, almost 14,000 people will find out that they are HIV positive.

Tomorrow, almost 10,000 of those living with AIDS today will be dead -- 250 just here in the United States.

These are my thoughts:

This is World AIDS Day because HIV/AIDS is a global pandemic. There are 40 million people living with HIV. More people are living with HIV than live in Canada or Iraq. More people on the planet are living with HIV than live in Australia and the Netherlands, or than call Chile, Ecuador and Cuba home. More people are HIV-positive than come from Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, and Israel combined.

There are more people living with HIV than living in 100 of the 235 recognized nation-states: Bhutan, Macedonia, Namibia, Slovenia, Lesotho, Botswana, Guinea-Bissau, The Gambia, Gabon, Estonia, Trinidad & Tobago, Mauritius, Swaziland, East Timor, Fiji, Cyprus, Qatar, Comoros, Djibouti, Réunion, Guyana, Bahrain, Montenegro, Transnistria, Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea, Solomon Islands, Luxembourg, Macau, Suriname, Guadeloupe, Malta, Martinique, Brunei, Western Sahara, Maldives, The Bahamas, Iceland, Belize, Barbados, French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, French Guiana, Samoa, Netherlands Antilles, Guam, Saint Lucia, São Tomé and Príncipe, Abkhazia, Channel Islands, Nagorno-Karabakh, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, US Virgin Islands, Micronesia, Grenada, Tona, Aruba, Kiribati, Antigua and Barbuda, Northern Mariana Islands, Seychelles, Dominica, Isle of Man, Andorra, South Ossentia, Bermuda, American Samoa, Marshall Islands, Greenland, Faroe Islands, Cayman Islands, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Monaco, Liechtenstein, San Marino, Gibraltar, Turks and Caicos, British Virgin Islands, Palau, Cook Islands, Wallis and Futuna, Anguilla, Nauru, Tuvalu, Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, Saint Helena, Montserrat, Falkland Islands, Niue, Tokelau, and the Vatican.

It is 25 years after the discovery of HIV and we are still fighting over condom use, and medical marijuana, and who should shoulder the greatest burden. It took 6 years for an American President to even publically say "AIDS." Millions were dead before the most powerful nation in the world took notice. This year, we'll spend about $25 billion addressing HIV and AIDS; most of the money will be spent here at home where fewer than 2% of the world's AIDS cases are. In the coming days, the President will ask for more than $100 billion for the Iraq war.

Today, you are much more likely to contract HIV than to die in a terrorist attack. I'd be willing to bet that a monogamous, heterosexual housewife who has never used drugs is more likely to contract HIV than die in a terrorist attack. And our leaders are debating whether condoms are effective in slowing the spread of HIV. (They are.)

I do not have AIDS. I've never had a friend die from the disease. But here, in Los Angeles, 30,000 people have. Most of them have been gay men. If I was just 5 or 10 years older, I imagine that I couldn't have written that. Would I, or my friends, be part of the statistic, part of the 500,000 Americans that we've lost in 25 years.

We've lost artists and teachers and scientists and parents. We've lost activists and preachers and healers and, most devastatingly, we've lost children. We've lost 28 million lives. Maybe one of those lives held the answer to bring peace to the Middle East. Maybe one of those lives held the answer to Global Warming. Maybe one of those was the next Picasso, or Mozart.

How many more will we lose? Will it be someone I love and care about? How many more of my friends will take the ultimate gamble with their own life?

No night of pleasure is worth the risk. No single relationship is worth the risk. Be smart. And get active.

There are 40,000,000 of our fellow global citizens that demand and need our action. We must do more. We will be paying penance for our six years of silence. Can we afford more?