The Washington Blade - Friday, May 14, 1999
Kai Wright

At a May 2 event kicking off two days of lobbying, hundreds of people with HIV and AIDS listened to leaders in the battle against the epidemic in the U.S. explain why they should be concerned about people with AIDS around the globe. They listened as experts explained that the bulk of the world's people with HIV and AIDS live in developing countries, have little or no access to treatment, and probably don't even know they have the disease in the first place.

Earlier in the day, Ron MacInnis of the Global Health Council briefed them on what to tell their senators and representatives about how the U.S. can help confront this problem: Increase the U.S. budget for international AIDS programs by 15 percent in the year 2000.

"The message that we would like you to bring," MacInnis said, "is that you care" about global AIDS.

The next two days of lobbying would be some participants' first shot at international AIDS activism. Chrystine Lewis of Boston, Mass., for instance, has a young daughter who has HIV infection. Lewis volunteers with a number of local AIDS programs, and her daughter participates in a program for children living with HIV. Two years ago, her daughter met a young boy who had just moved from Zimbabwe. He was also living with HIV, and his family had just moved to Boston to gain access to better drugs.

The boy's experience dramatically illustrated for the Lewis that AIDS is a global problem. But, as Lewis and friends who accompanied her from Massachusetts said during the May 2 event, she's not sure what she can do to help.

"I don't have the answer to that," she shrugged.

"Sometimes, we're so busy dealing with our own health issues," added Robert McCarthy, also from Boston. "And then we're doing the work in our community. And once a year, a bunch of us come down here and try to educate our legislators. à So we're kind of very much involved on the community and state level, and somewhat involved on the federal level, and pretty much not involved on the international level."

But the AIDS policy advocates who addressed the participants on May 2 said the next two days were an opportunity for them to make a difference. Each speaker reminded the participants that their presence would show their representatives that people living with AIDS in the U.S. also care about how the U.S. contributes to the fight for people living with AIDS around the world.

"The virus has unleashed a war on us in Africa," said Eka Esu Williams of the Society for Women and AIDS in Africa, adding that the world needs a leader in confronting the pandemic in poor countries. "That leadership has got to come from here. The resources have got to come from here."

AIDS Action's Daniel Zingale added that, by lobbying on behalf of people with AIDS around the world, the participants would undercut the effort of some conservatives on Capitol Hill to "narrow" AIDS activists by painting them as greedy and powerful lobbyists who are unconcerned about other populations.

"We are at our best," Zingale said, "when we refuse to buy into this hierarchy of compassion."

But for some participants, international AIDS activism isn't so new. James Portis of the Community AIDS Network in Akron, Ohio, said his group set aside 25 percent of all donations it received this year to purchase AIDS drugs for a clinic in Nigeria. Portis said the groups' membership was thrilled about the idea and the group plans to do something similar next year. He said it gives the group a fundraising "niche" and sets it apart from other organizations in the area.

Jody Michael Huckaby of New Mexico AIDS Services in Albuquerque, N.M., said he is informally involved with a group of people who donate excess AIDS drugs to people in Mexico.

"It's shocking to me because Las Cruces is the most southern part of New Mexico and two hours from there the HIV care is just atrocious. There's no HIV care whatsoever. So we feel, because we're a border state, that we have a tremendous responsibility. à AIDS has no borders."
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