High Hopes Await Obama in HIV/AIDS Fight
My Thanksgiving ends each year in a solemn reflection of the dozens of friends I have lost to AIDS and the indelible scar the pandemic has etched across the globe.
Today, on World AIDS Day, I wonder what Ron, Michael, Cecil, Charles, Gigi, Larry, and so many other Chicago AIDS activists gone-by would say of the incoming Obama Administration. Would they triumph in the President-elect's message of hope or lament the effects of HIV stigma, complacency, and competing priorities in muting needed change?
The estimated 1.1 million people living with HIV/AIDS in the U.S.--and the millions more who are concerned about and affected by the epidemic--ponder such questions as the global economy spirals deeper into recession and domestic and international security grows more fragile with each passing day.
When he assumes power, Barack Obama will take the reins of the largest, sustained commitment of any nation to lifesaving HIV treatments for some of the world's most impoverished citizens. He will also inherit indefensible and ideologically motivated HIV prevention policies that literally contributed to millions of HIV infections at home and abroad.
The myopic and neglectful policies of President George W. Bush squandered ample opportunities to curb rates of HIV in the U.S. As compared to eight years ago, today's epidemic is larger, growing faster, and more solidly entrenched among low-income men, women, and children.
Today's trends are broadening the HIV disparities experienced by often overlapping populations of gay and bisexual men, African Americans, substance users, and Southerners, among others. The Bush White House proved callous even to the severe disparities right outside its doors: 1 in 20 Washington, DC residents is thought to be HIV-positive, and the city's AIDS case rate is the highest in the nation.
The Obama campaign's plans to tackle HIV/AIDS bear the marks of his signature themes of hope and change. On global AIDS, Obama pledges to at least double the number of HIV-positive people in the developing world benefiting from antiretroviral treatments, expand HIV prevention research, and invest in poor countries' health infrastructure. His plan would raise foreign aid, support the rights of poor countries to access low-cost generic medications, and resist ideological, unproven agendas.
Obama's domestic HIV/AIDS plan is no less ambitious. He would intensify HIV/AIDS-related services in communities of color, where the epidemic is most severe, and increase U.S. investments in HIV-related housing, prevention, care, and research programs. Unlike his predecessors, he enters office as a firm supporter of needle exchange and comprehensive sex education programs, both proven-effective public health interventions.
Fixing the nation's crumbling health care system and adopting a comprehensive, results-oriented National AIDS Strategy are at the top of Obama's domestic HIV/AIDS agenda. If fully realized, each priority could well transform and improve the lives of all Americans with and at risk for HIV/AIDS for decades to come and lift the nation and its people in innumerable ways, from enhanced public-health outcomes to increased competitiveness in an increasingly global marketplace.
Leadership on economic and security priorities notwithstanding, the President-elect can demonstrate his unwavering commitment to progress fighting HIV/AIDS with decisive, early actions:
• Use executive powers and the bully pulpit to promote greater progress in HIV prevention, care, and research activities and the protection of human rights. Immediate presidential orders can improve the delivery of HIV-related services and help protect the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS. In addition, President Obama must call on Congress to increase the U.S. investment in HIV-related programs and pass needed legislation, including measures to expand Medicaid coverage for HIV-positive people and increase the availability of proven-effective needle exchange programs.
• Name the most experienced, diverse HIV/AIDS team in history to implement the new Administration's bold AIDS-related agenda. President Obama's team should reflect the diversity of HIV/AIDS, reward experience fighting the epidemic at home and abroad, and counter persistent HIV stigma by recruiting skilled professionals who are openly living with HIV/AIDS.
• Grant the U.S. domestic AIDS office the same level of responsibility, authority, and prestige assigned to the U.S. Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator. The federal government's global AIDS enterprise offers an effective management structure that could well be replicated to improve domestic AIDS activities. Given the necessity to track progress and achieve results, the domestic AIDS office and existing advisory structures must be reformed.
• Name AIDS advocates and experts to important policy-making boards and councils on poverty, civil rights, health care reform, criminal justice, drug policy, housing, and food security issues. HIV/AIDS is a crosscutting issue affected by other services sectors. In addition, lessons learned responding to the epidemic can benefit other national policy priorities.
• Empanel a group of experts and federal officials, inclusive of people living with HIV/AIDS, to draft the Administration's coordinated, results-oriented National AIDS Strategy. Planning should begin immediately and within the first 100 days in office. To achieve the level of coordination and input needed from across various federal agencies, high-ranking officials from relevant agencies should be named to the panel. Vice President Joe Biden or a member of the Cabinet might be named to co-chair the panel, with a strict mandate to complete the Strategy no later than January 2010.
• Inspire national service fighting HIV/AIDS domestically. Guided by a National AIDS Strategy, President Obama should enlist the goodwill of the American people to end AIDS domestically through national service opportunities and a call for global AIDS action inclusive of our own country.
"We are all sick because of AIDS, and we are all tested by this crisis," said Senator Obama for World AIDS Day 2006. "AIDS must be an all-hands-on-deck effort."
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
Mark as a gay Chicagoan - Thank you so much for all your years of work with this organization.
I have yet to see one of the blogs in the last few days bring up the fact that to fight AIDS you have to campaign against promiscuous sex , unprotected sex and drug use ....
It's hard to bring that up when Right Wing Republican's are constantly pushing for abstinence only education.
The Bush Administration put all sorts of strings on AIDS prevention in other countries so they could not push condoms or educate sex workers.
The right wing would rather see people die and hold to their self richeous beliefs of how other people should behave.
How widespread is the phenomenon
"Let's get tested TOGETHER
BEFORE we have sex, for A VARIETY of STDs."
Sexual health checkups can reduce ambiguity/risks and be
like anything else POTENTIAL sex partners might do together.
PEPFAR is probably the one good thing that Bush has done for the world but he had to add abstinence conditions and in the end he made it worse . However I wish he would have refunded Ryan White when he had the chance. Since the Ryan White was not adequately funded ,services for people living with HIV/AIDS have dwindled, the waiting list for Medicines have grown with individuals dying while they waited and infection rates have increased in youth since abatinence only education in schools. I am optimistic that Obama does address HIV/AIDS domestically and we can reverse the trend of infection rates. I totally agree with the points made in this piece.
MCPiano, what Bush did for HIV in Africa is great, but the point of this article is that we've got an epidemic right here in the United States that nobody wants to deal with. HIV is exploding in poorer communities and communities of color, and for the past 10 years while the face of HIV has been changing, it has been increasingly ignored here. I once saw a documentary on HIV in America in which the reporter baited prominent political figures from John Edwards to Al Sharpton, and each one started droning on about HIV/AIDS in Africa when the reporter explicitly asked about it in the U.S. Also, once the mistake was noted, they didn't even have an answer. I'm glad that this country is solving problems overseas, but we need to sweep off our own porch before we worry about everybody else.
What a great piece! I appreciate the optimistic tone toward the end, but I'm also discouraged by Obama's need to praise Bush's efforts in the global battle. As Ishaug correctly points out, the current administration only worsened the conditions of those living with the disease while making it more difficult for others to focus on prevention. It's been a complete catastrophe. I'm hopeful for a policy reversal, but I'm honestly dismayed by the needless pandering to eight years of destructive and ignorant initiatives.
George W. Bush gave more to AIDS in Africa than Clinton or any other president. Will he be remembered for it?
Obama actually credited him on it in an address recently. Its on HuffPo somewhere actually. Shouldn't be hard though to exceed Bush in that respect though.
I will bet if you ask, nobody will know this fact.
But there were strings attached - no teaching sex workers etc. Unlike Clinton because democrats actually want to stop the disease not force their views on others who are in need.
No Republican will be able to make up for the negligence of the Reagan administraion during the crises.
People were dying but because it was gay men, drug users and hemophiliacs they didn't give a sh*t.
On World AIDS day, I also remember and reflect on many friends with AIDS who died much too young. My oldest brother was one of those people with AIDS who died in the early 90s more because of the new AIDS treatments than AIDS. His liver gave out. But, that is another story. My brother's life and death gives me a unique perspectives on AIDS. But moreover, I am a Black man who tested positive in 1991 for the HIV antibody too. It has been...a learning experienced, to say the least! During the 90s, I spend my time on HIV and AIDS education and prevention in an organization based in Harlem New York. We reached 1,000 of at risk men and women with the safe sex message and I am sure other people and organizations reached 1,000 of people with the same message. No question, I am hopeful that President elect Barack Obama will refocus some of the attention and money on the domestic HIV and AIDS crisis. Your suggestion for new policy on HIV and AIDS are good Mark. But, I also deeply believe we should allow others who disagree about the cause of AIDS to speak and/or to rethink the HIV=AIDS paradigm. President elect Obama please be open minded about HIV and AIDS from all perspectives. We could be sooo wrong about our science, you know.
I think that on this World AIDS Day, I'm less interested in what the president-elect may do, than I am disgusted with myself and with many others that almost 30 years down the road, there is no cure for AIDS, and no vaccine. When it was polio, the mothers of this country marched through their neighborhoods collecting money for research -- where are we now?
Don't misunderstand me -- I'm 100% for prevention techniques and care for those who have AIDS, and I support that both financially and as a volunteer. What I haven't done is lobby effectively for a cure and/or a vaccine, and I'm looking for ways to do that. I hope others will do the same
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
