3. As you think about what you can do here in Seattle to participate in the great battles for health and social justice like the battle to bring treatment to poor people living with HIV, I would like to leave you with a quote from a particularly distinguished member of my tribe, the tribe of anthropologists. Margaret Mead once said, "never underestimate the ability of a small group of committed souls to change the world. Indeed, they are the only ones who ever have." It is my great, great privilege today to deliver a lecture named after a man who every day of his life, lives in solidarity with the suffering poor who are waiting for so many things, especially treatment for HIV.

1.1. 3by5 is an attempt to use time in the most creative of ways. Bureaucrats who were supposed to lead the battle against this epidemic were simply telling us that it was getting worse and that we should pay more attention. Body counts and meetings, more body counts and more meetings. When PLWHA demanded treatment for everyone, most of them just shrugged their shoulders and said it was too complex and not cost-effective. We knew as we were preparing to announce 3by5 that we needed to use time to light a fire under all of us who have the skills and the resources to do something about this epidemic. I wake up every morning in a cold sweat thinking about how little time left we have to reach our target of 3 million on treatment. But I take comfort in knowing that for even a brief moment, I might share a small fraction of the terror that people waiting for ARV treatment feel every moment of their lives.

2.2. Gustavo Gutierrez, during a public conversation with Noam Chomsky that was sponsored by Partners in Health, told us that there is a simplicity on this side of complexity and a simplicity on that side of complexity. He told us to try our best to never mistake the former for the latter and to do whatever we can to reach the latter in any great project we take on. 3by5 is often misunderstood as the simplicity on this side of complexity. Nothing could be further from the truth. 3by5 represents an understanding that the mighty battle we are now engaged in to struggle with and ultimately handle the complexities of HIV treatment, may be one of the few chances we have in this life for redemption. All of us, especially the health care workers among us, might be asked someday by our children, what did you do when you knew that AIDS was going to be such a huge problem. My own answer will be that I didn't do enough but we took a good shot at it with 3by5.