When most students consider the global HIV/AIDS pandemic, they think of disease. Perhaps they think of hunger, too, but they probably do not realize that a lack of food is undermining the effectiveness of AIDS drugs in impoverished nations where the crisis is at its worst.

The fact is that nutrition is required for absorption of treatment drugs by the body. Without adequate nourishment, AIDS victims experience terrible stomach aches and nausea when they take the drugs, and this deters many patients from taking the drugs at all, according to the Associated Press.

Thus far, much of the industrialized world’s focus in addressing the AIDS crisis has been placed on facilitating free drugs where they are needed most. But when donors have been tapped for billions of dollars in drug funding and are unable or unwilling to donate an additional estimated 66 cents per day per patient for food which is required for the drugs to be useful, something has gone wrong.

Several programs like World Food Program’s HIV/AIDS service are attempting to fill the food deficit, but more work is needed.

As another World AIDS Day approaches Dec. 1, well-meaning and ambitious campaigns like (Product) Red, organizations like Seattle-based World Vision and private donors alike would do well to remember the most basic needs of victims along with disease-specific needs. The two are more related than outwardly apparent.

Leader in the battle against AIDS and subject of UW’s Common Book Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World will be lecturing on campus tonight. The lecture will be available via web cast from www.washington.edu.