The Lancet goes RED

What does The Lancet have in common with Motorola, American Express or the clothing company GAP?

(RED)! This campaign, launched at the World Economic Forum earlier in 2006, provides additional funding for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Each company has developed its own (RED) product and will donate a percentage of profits to support the Global Fund's activities against HIV/AIDS. (RED) has made $10 million in its first 4 months and the organization hopes to convince many more companies to develop a (PRODUCT) RED item.

From the editorial, The Business of HIV/AIDS (subscription required):

The Lancet is taking part in this exciting initiative and is contributing $30,000 to (PRODUCT) RED in support of this important project. We hope that other medical and scientific journals and publishers will join this cause.

To coincide with the International AIDS Conference in Toronto from August 13-18, 2006, The Lancet has teamed up with (RED) and devoted the latest issue to HIV/AIDS. This is a bonus issue in terms of all the great features and articles from the best and brightest in the HIV/AIDS world. Subscribers to the journal will find an impressive line-up of interviews, early online publications, articles from (The Lancet) RED and The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

As my colleagues Myra Sessions and Celina Schocken wrote in May, the Independent newspaper blazed a RED trail in the media world by devoting an entire issue to HIV/AIDS and donated half of the proceeds from those sales to the Global Fund, and now The Lancet does its bit. Who would have thought that the written word, media or scientific, could be a player in the same market as cell phones, credit cards and t-shirts? The "business of AIDS" is creating this emerging market for private partners of all types, and it is our collective (public and private) responsibility to maximize the returns on these innovative and diverse investments for those affected by HIV/AIDS.