world aids day: another commercialized holiday?

NYTimes Home Page: Starbucks and PRODUCT(RED) Advertisement

Today is World AIDS Day. Twitter went red. Even Google had a link under its main search box today that featured links where you could learn more and act against AIDS.

I’m always confused about how to commemorate the day: it’s not really meant to be a celebration, and worse yet, all the solicitation one sees from PRODUCT(RED) and the like in the week leading up to World AIDS Day makes me feel it’s been commercialized (much like that other big day in December). In fact, the image here is a screenshot of the NYT home page last week.

In related HIV/AIDS news:

• The 2012 International AIDS Conference will be held in Washington DC (a place that has high enough HIV prevalence that some liken it to West Africa).
• A new study in the Royal Society of Medicine shows that one in five HIV infections in Africa are caused by medical staff.