As shareholder of 1,000 shares Abbott common stock, I wish to thank you for your recently announced initiative to provide access to HIV test kits to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

Last year a spent some time visiting Tanzania, and got to see up close the tremendous human devastation being wrought by HIV throughout sub-Saharan Africa. The word tragedy doesn't begin to describe what I witnessed. Worldwide, an estimated 3 million died from AIDS last year. A death rate greater than the peak death rate during the Holocaust (an estimated 2.7 million Jews were killed during 1942). Today, anti-retroviral drugs only reach 4% of all people in need of them. Given the huge resources that went into their development, this outcome constitutes a huge institutional and societal failure.

I wish to personally thank both yourself and Abbott, for the steps you have taken, and that you continue to take, in helping address this key test of our common humanity.