Justine Sacco, a former PR executive who sparked a firestorm of controversy on Twitter, apologized Sunday for her "needless and careless tweet" about AIDS in Africa. In a written statement. Sacco apologized "for being insensitive to this crisis -- which does not discriminate by race, gender or sexual orientation, but which terrifies us all uniformly -- and to the millions of people living with the virus, I am ashamed." She added that she is a native of South Africa and was upset that she had hurt so many people there. "I am very sorry for the pain I caused," she wrote.
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Top PR executive says she is very sorry and ashamed
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She no longer works for large media company IAC
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Corporate communications head was on 12-hour flight when tweet went viral
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IAC says, "There is no excuse for the hateful statements that have been made"
Advocates for @placeholder relief set up websites to encourage donations; one of the sites read, "The AIDS epidemic is bigger than a tweet from a person in PR.