Readers Sound Off

(Red) Is Very Green Product (Red), in fact, is seeing a lot of 'green' ['Seeing (Red)?' May/June]. Thanks to consumers who have been inspi(red) to purchase from (Red)'s product partners'Gap, Converse, Emporio Armani, Motorola, and Apple'25,000 people in Rwanda and Swaziland now have lifesaving antiretrovirals, and 200,000 HIV-positive mothers received the medicine needed to ensure their babies are born healthy. After launching (Red) and JoinRed.com in the United States in just October 2006, the campaign now proudly ranks 15th on the list of donors to the Global Fund'ahead of countries like Ireland, Russia, China and Switzerland. Before (Red), the Global Fund raised $4 million from the private sector since 2002. In less than a year (Red) raised $25 million. This is a real solution to a pandemic that is destroying generations in Africa. It is not a substitute to donations'in fact, we are already seeing (Red) community members responding with increased interest in donations. (Red) partner companies spent their existing marketing budgets on raising awareness around the fact that 5,500 people a day die of AIDS in Africa'rather than on their regular product promotions. (Red) is infiltrating traditional marketing and directing the full force of creative genius toward a crisis that equates to a tsunami a week. The (Red) consumer movement is a core part of the real solution. So I call on all those good- looking Samaritans among your readership: Shop till it stops! RIP, HIV! Tamsin Smith, President Product (Red) San Francisco Yoga! Yoga! I love doing yoga'and have been practicing it for years'and I love Danny Gray's story ['New Life Awakening' March/April]. The effects yoga can have on your physical and mental states can only be appreciated by actually doing it. So do it! Everybody! Jenn St. John Long Beach, Calif. It's Not Just About Me? I was taken by surprise with the bold headline on your cover reading 'How Can Taking Fewer Sexual Risks Lead to Increased STDs?' [March/April]. I took a copy so that my partner of 10 years and I could read the article. We are serodiscordant and have spent over a decade practicing taking fewer risks, so it was alarming to read a headline that seemed to suggest that our safer-sex practices could actually increase the risk of exposure to my partner. Well, I searched the table of contents for a story title that matched the headline. I found nothing that seemed to relate. So I read the issue from cover to cover, and I have still found not a single word explaining how taking fewer risks will lead to more sexually transmitted diseases. I admit to being totally puzzled. What was your point? Sensationalism? Ron Richardson via e-mail [The editors reply: The cover blurb refers to the article on page 7, 'A Racial Paradox,' which discusses how research shows that African-Americans, in general, take fewer sexual risks than people of other ethnic groups yet they have surprisingly higher rates of STDs. The question on the cover is posed to highlight the illogical link of these two sets of opposing circumstances as well as the researchers' conclusion'that there must be more investigation into this topic.]