As a person with HIV, I was pleased to hear the Coca Cola company's announcement, made during the United Nations Special Assembly on HIV/AIDS, that it was planning to address AIDS in Africa by having its truckers distribute condoms, and impressed to hear that it planned to provide desperately needed treatment to its employees with HIV in Africa.

But after the initial press frenzy, we learned the shameful truth: Coca Cola will only provide HIV treatment if you are one of its 1500 marketing and white-collar employees, not if you are among of the 100,000 bottlers and truckers that make and distribute Coke throughout Africa.

In other words, a Coca-Cola trucker can hand out condoms, but if that same employee develops AIDS, Coca-Cola will watch him die without lifting a finger. Every stockholder in this room should demand an end to these shameful business practices--this form of medical apartheid, particularly in light of the false impression Coca-Cola gave in its initial press release.

I call on Coca-Cola to do what is needed: treat your workers! Stop hiding behind claims that bottlers and truckers are not really your employees. You have a responsibility to ensure their health and the future of Africa, where you made over $600 million in profits last year alone.

Activists have fought for years to lower the price of AIDS medicines in Africa, and these life-saving drugs are now available at less than $300 a year. To let Coca-Cola bottlers and truckers die while HIV + workers in the smaller subset of white collar employees receive treatment, is simply immoral when medicine available for you to pay for at less than a dollar a day.

Coca-Cola:
DO THE REAL THING--DO THE RIGHT THING!
TREAT YOUR EMPLOYEES WITH HIV IN AFRICA!
ACT UP! FIGHT BACK! FIGHT AIDS!

-- Mark Milano, member of Health GAP and ACT UP New York

I am an AIDS activist and I've come here today at the request of people with AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa.

8,000 people with HIV/AIDS die each day because they do not have access to affordable medicine. Medicine that only costs $1-$2 a day that could give them hope, life, and a future. Despite this devastation, Coke is refusing to adopt a sound policy on HIV.

Coke is the largest private employer in Africa-- but Coke refuses to provide HIV/AIDS care to workers and their families dying with HIV.

These employees generating profit for Coke with their labor, and brought you the 11% growth rate--highest of all the regions--are facing certain death because Coke won't treat it HIV + workers.

The current HIV/AIDS policy excludes all but the smallest fraction of African employees with access to treatment.

People with AIDS in Africa, Coke workers, their families, demand Coke immediately change its AIDS policies.

It is not enough for Coke to offer condoms, or AIDS awareness posters.

Workers with AIDS in Africa need more than good intentions from this company. Without affordable treatment your base of employable labor will disappear as certain as villages are being depleted of adults leaving only the elderly and orphans.

Without action, Coke will be forever associated with every other politician turning a blind eye to the suffering of families struggling with AIDS.

Coke can help in stabilizing the workforce in Africa. But more than that, it just makes sound business sense that a corporation do more for workers devastated by AIDS than offer pity.

We demand Coke: o Provide all 100,000 African workers and their dependents with comprehensive healthcare ­ including life-sustaining antiretroviral treatments for those that have HIV/AIDS.

o Offer confidential HIV testing and counseling to all workers, in the context of a clear anti-discrimination policy for the men and women that bottle can and distribute your products.

o Distribute free condoms in the workplace, and provide safer-sex and sexual health education classes.

o Develop further HIV/AIDS prevention and education policies in collaboration with affected employees, their labor representatives, and community-based health initiatives.

We know what works. What works is affordable treatment that extends lives and gives workers hope.

American activists and activists all over Africa stand together to demand that workers have the promise of life. Because "life tastes good." But, not if you are an African worker with AIDS. Then, Coke tastes like nothing but certain death.

-- Sharonann Lynch, member of Health GAP and ACT UP New York