MAGIC POTION: The Village Voice (in the person of writer Ta-Nehisi Coates) is coming down on Magic Johnson for agreeing to appear in a series of print ads for Combivir, an HIV/AIDS drug made by GlaxoSmithKline. Johnson, probably America's most famous carrier of the HIV virus, decided to make the ads in order to spread AIDS awareness in the African-American community; Coates and others see a problem with it, however, because Glaxo is one of the pharmaceutical companies that has sought to protect its patent, and thus prevented the proliferation of generic drugs.
There's one thing these people must realize: if it weren't for Combivir and other drugs like it, Magic Johnson would very likely be dead right now. Anyone who remembers Johnson's revelation in 1991 that he had tested positive remembers that the science of the time projected that Magic had, at most, 10 years to live. Last night, twelve years later, Magic (looking healthy, if a little chubby) was in studio for TNT's NBA playoff coverage.
As America's second-most famous carrier of the HIV virus has pointed out, if the companies that produce HIV and AIDS drugs had been forced ten years ago to start giving away all their drugs for free, they probably would've gone out of business, the revolution in AIDS drugs in the past five years never would've happened, and many, many people would be dead. So cut Magic some slack- with the exception of the scientists who have designed the drugs, he's probably done more for people with AIDS in the past decade than any other American.