Slaughtering sacred cows

Participants in the 16th International Aids conference perform a play intended to diminish prejudice against HIV positive people. Photograph: Jorge Uzon/AFP/Getty

The Guardian's health editor, Sarah Boseley, is posting from the 16th international Aids conference for News blog this week. Here is her fourth report. You can read the first three here, here and here.

Perhaps it's because we're in north America, where time is money, but this year's International Aids conference has been brisk, sanitised and to the point.

It's mainly about preventing the spread of disease, which the Gates Foundation is especially focused on. Even the announcement of new figures showing that one million people in sub-Saharan African are on drug treatment has been something of a footnote to the microbicides and circumcision agenda.

It's not like the last meeting in Bangkok two years ago, which was a noisy, chaotic and passionate affair, with access to drugs still a burning issue.

But no conference is complete without an enfant terrible. Along came Gregg Gonsalves, with the sort of hand grenade one used to expect at these events on a regular basis.