Sentenced to death

I'm sad to report that the six medics who were accused of deliberately infecting 400 children with HIV in Libya have been condemned to death this morning, according to the Wall Street Journal, despite scientific evidence published in Nature that gave them a strong alibi: the HIV subtype that infected the kids was known to be present and spreading locally before the medics even arrived in the country in 1998.

You can read more about the history of this issue in Declan Butler's blog (he is a senior reporter at Nature) and also at Scienceblogs. My heart goes out to the medics and their families.