The Final "World AIDS Day" For Lame-Duck Dubya

This VOA News story tells us that..

More than a thousand people living with HIV and their allies (were) expected to gather near the White House (on November 20th) in a preemptive public demonstration for AIDS advocacy. They are staging a pretend inauguration ceremony to urge President-Elect Barack Obama to improve the way the United States fights AIDS domestically and globally.

The rally comes one day after former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle accepted Mr. Obama’s offer to become Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) and implement a campaign pledge to deliver comprehensive universal health care to Americans. Associate director Michael Swigert of the group Africa Action is coordinating today’s simulated inaugural ceremony near the White House, which takes place two months before the actual swearing-in on January 20. He says that President Obama’s first 100 days in office will be crucial in setting priorities for fighting HIV/AIDS.

I would be remiss if I didn’t note here that Dubya actually did something right on this issue, namely, the fact that $48 billion has been pledged on funding for PEPFAR, which stands for The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (and as the VOA News story tells us, Joe Biden, as former head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, helped with allocating the $48 billion, which is a big increase from the $30 billion committed to PEPFAR as I noted here last February).

However, since we’re talking about Bushco, of course, the following should be noted (from here)…

"The passage of (the Hyde/Lantos bill, which contained the $48 billion in funding) is a huge step forward for people with AIDS worldwide," said Paul Davis, Director of U.S. Government Affairs for Health GAP. "However, there are still US policies that stand as serious barriers to AIDS prevention and sexual and reproductive health, and we will continue to challenge these harmful policies."

The Hyde/Lantos bill overturns a previous requirement that one-third of all prevention funding must go to abstinence and fidelity programs, but it now requires a report to Congress if countries spend less than half their prevention funding on such programs. The new law also still requires aid recipients to avow their opposition to commercial sex work.

By the way, the “What Not To Wear” post from February explains why it’s ridiculous to try and impost “abstinence only” requirements in Africa; mainly, because many of the men are so barbaric that they won’t observe anything resembling monogamy.

I also wondered why Dubya even established PEPFAR at all when you realize that it was just another bureaucracy; we could have just contributed to the U.N. Global AIDS Fund, but I think part of what drove that decision was our preznit’s desire to impose the “abstinence-only” restrictions and also make sure as few generic drugs as possible were used for treatment to ensure Big Pharma’s profitability here (pretty unconscionable, but typical for this bunch).

Health GAP specifically lauded the bill's emphasis on training and retention of doctors and nurses in resource-poor countries, as a "brain drain" of health care workers has been a serious barrier to scaling up HIV/AIDS programs.

In an opinion piece in the July 30, 2008 San Francisco Chronicle, Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA), a co-author of the legislation, called its passage "a landmark achievement that will save millions of people from certain death and prevent millions of new HIV infections in the developing world." However, she added, "Sadly, our commitment to fighting AIDS globally has not extended to the fight against AIDS here at home."

Indeed, as this tells us…

The Center for Disease Control announced at the International AIDS Conference this year that the annual number of new HIV infections in the United States is 56,000-plus. This figure is 40 percent higher than the CDC's estimates for the previous 12 years. We live at the national epicenter of the HIV epidemic as 17 percent of all persons who are HIV-positive in the United States live in New York state.

…

This year, the governor and our state legislators have cut funding to local providers of HIV/AIDS services twice, a total of nearly 10 percent. These cuts have already led to a reduction statewide in HIV prevention education services, including at Southern Tier AIDS Program. Is this a wise choice in the state with the highest rates of HIV infections in the country?

This link to the Kaiser Family Foundation web site takes you to a full page of downloadable fact sheets on HIV/AIDS in this country and throughout the world. Also, this link takes you to the World AIDS Day page from the web site of the Centers for Disease Control.

Knowledge is power, and I don’t think that’s ever been truer than now in the fight against this scourge.

And by the way, remind me never to give Rick Warren credit for anything again (so, two million AIDS victims helped here versus a minimum of two million Iraq war refugees, to say nothing of casualties - not even a “wash”).