AEGiS-BAR: Clinton leads World AIDS Day activities

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2000. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Clinton leads World AIDS Day activities

Bay Area Reporter - December 7, 2000
Bob Roehr

President Clinton marked World AIDS Day with a flurry of activity in Washington, D.C. On the calendar for December 1 was a visit to the Whitman-Walker Clinic to speak with people living with HIV, an address at Howard University, release of an international blueprint on fighting AIDS by the National Institutes of Health, and release of a summation of accomplishments by the White House. It was essentially old wine in new bottles, a repackaging of ongoing activities. But it was a useful reminder that AIDS remains a huge, deadly problem.

First up was the Whitman-Walker Clinic, which grew out of the volunteer Gay Men's Venereal Disease Clinic of the 1970s. Clinton toured the facilities and "had a really good chat with our clients," said Executive Director Cornelius Baker. "He mainly wanted to listen and learn."

"Part of the complacency today is that some people believe we have a cure," said Baker. "But it takes sophisticated health care and social services programs to keep people strong, healthy, and alive." The president heard how those programs helped one 17-year survivor of HIV twice recover from near death, while another said the support kept him from falling back into addiction.

The next stop was the chapel at Howard University, where the president addressed religious leaders gathered for a conference. "Today, we have come together, people from all over the world, from different countries, to ask ourselves a simple, stark question: whether we are prepared to do what is necessary to save millions of lives of those who are living with HIV and AIDS and all those who might yet avoid it," Clinton said. "It will depend upon, in equal measure, our will and our wallet."

He reminded the audience that "AIDS everywhere is still 100 percent preventable." He challenged them, saying, "Overcoming stigma and overcoming silence will be impossible without the moral leadership that in so many places only religious leaders can provide."

The NIH released an 85-page global AIDS plan. It set out goals for research in prevention through social interventions, use of condoms, and the development of microbicides to give women control of protection from sexually transmitted diseases. It also includes better therapies, vaccine development, and training programs.

A White House report claimed that "since 1993, the Clinton-Gore administration has more than doubled spending on research, prevention and treatment to a total of $12 billion." While the numbers are accurate, credit for them lies more with Congress than the White House. The Clinton budget often has proposed only a cost of living increase for research, which Congress has pushed up several-fold, lately averaging 15 percent.

Congress has consistently appropriated more for services than has been requested.

Meanwhile in Rome, the Vatican's contribution was to reaffirm its opposition to use of condoms to prevent transmission of the disease.

"According to Catholic doctrine," said Archbishop Javier Barragan, president of the Pontifical Council for Health Workers, using a condom is "not ethically permissible à because they do not respect the absolute dignity of the human person." Presumably, becoming infected with HIV is more ethical and respectful of humanity.

The government of South Africa announced conclusion of an agreement with the pharmaceutical company Pfizer in which it will donate about $50 million worth of the drug Fluconazole for use in treating meningitis associated with HIV infection. The program will run for two years [see story, page TK].

A few days later, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the African Development Forum focused its annual meeting on the economic and societal impact of HIV. The UN Economic Commission for Africa said that HIV "is no longer merely a health problem but poses a major development crisis in the continent."

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