Miami Herald - July 12, 2002
Fred Tasker, ftasker@herald.com

"OK, who here is HIV positive and not afraid to talk about it?" he called out.

Instantly, Antigone Hodgins of Washington, D.C., was beside him. He wrapped her in a hearty bear hug and beamed for the camera: "I feel just as healthy now as I did two seconds ago."

Clinton's hug will be shown to millions of MTV viewers at 10 a.m. Sunday as the network begins a multimedia, worldwide campaign to educate young people about AIDS. By the end of the decade, 21.5 million people ages 15 to 24 worldwide will be living with AIDS or HIV -- a staggering 70 percent jump over today's rates. That's according to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, which along with MTV and Family Health International is one of the campaign's sponsors.

The former president taped the special -- MTVs Staying Alive: A Global Forum on HIV/AIDS -- here on Thursday at the 14th International AIDS Conference, which winds up today. The youths, about two dozen, were mostly in their 20s and hailed from 26 countries. Some of them had HIV or AIDS.

The crowd grilled Clinton on why the United States wasn't contributing more to the worldwide fight against AIDS. Clinton is co-chairman of the International Aids Trust with former South African President Nelson Mandela.

Tina, of South Africa, asked: "How can it be that when 3,000 people died on Sept. 11, the U.S. government could spend $40 billion in three days, but the U.S. couldn't come up with $10 billion for AIDS in a whole year?"

The Bush Administration has come under strong attack during the conference for not contributing more money to the U.N. Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, launched in January. The United States has committed $500 million over three years to the fund; the United Nations has estimated the world will need to spend $10 billion annually for several years to get AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria under control.

Of the countries that have pledged money to the fund, the United States has promised the largest dollar amount. But it's less than .01 percent of the country's gross domestic product. Japan, the United Kingdom and Italy each committed $200 million -- less than the United States, but a larger percentage of their GDP. The Netherlands tops the list: Its $126.8 million is just a bit more than .03 percent of their GDP.

Prominent Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs said earlier this week that the United States should contribute $3.5 billion annually to fighting these diseases -- $2.5 billion for the U.N. fund and another $1 billion on programs it chooses.

Clinton echoed that, and took a jab at President Bush. Pointing out that the United States produces 22 percent of the world's GDP, and that the poorest countries can't afford to spend anything on AIDS, Clinton told the group that the nation's contribution should equal 25 percent of the U.N. fund, or $2.5 billion.

"We should be able to come up with money like this," Clinton said. "Where we need to be [would cost] less than two months of the war in Afghanistan."

Clinton spent an impromptu second hour helping the youths brainstorm how they could do more to fight AIDS, which he calls the world's biggest single problem, barring nuclear war.

"You can badger governments and organizations and drug companies to do more, but it's so much easier if you badger for something specific," he said.

Asked how the youths could get a bigger voice in government, he said: "Ask Tommy Thompson to set up a youth committee.

"I know he had a rough time here the other day," Clinton said, referring to when Thompson, the U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary, was booed off the stage Tuesday while trying to address the conference. "But he's tough. He'll get over it."

While Clinton was clearly the star, the youths also questioned Rupert Everett, film star; Peter Piot, executive director of UNAIDS; Raphael Ndingi Mwana'a Nzeki, archbishop of Nairobi; Paulo Roberto Teixeria of the Brazilian ministry of health, and Vicki Ehrich of the drug giant GlaxoSmithKline.

Pamela, of Kenya, challenged the archbishop: "My sister died from AIDS because she didn't know how to protect herself. It was painful to see her wasting away."

LIVELY DISCUSSION

Pointing out that the church in Kenya opposes condom use, she continued: "The church is very powerful in Kenya. When is it going to wake up?"

"The Catholic Church says abstinence is the way," the archbishop said. "Abstinence is affordable, it works and there are no side effects."

"Get real!" Raul bounded up to say. "Everybody is having sex. Stop judging people."

The show's host, MTV India video-jockey Cyrus Broacha, asked for a show of hands of all who support condom use. Nearly every hand was raised. So were the hands of the archbishop's two panel mates, Everett and Piot.

When Clinton finally left, Hodgins was still glowing from her close encounter with the former president.

'TOO HEALTHY'

She said she grew up in San Francisco, came to fear she had AIDS at 19 but couldn't get her doctor to test her until she was 22. 'He always said, 'You look too healthy to have AIDS,' " she said.

When she learned she was positive, she figured it had happened in an unprotected sexual encounter at 16.

"In school they told us about birth control, but they never told us about condoms," she said. Living in Washington, she is deputy executive director of the National Association of People with AIDS.

And now everybody was asking her about that hug, which William Roedy, president of MTV Networks International and part-time Miami Beach resident, likened to when Lady Di embraced that little child in the AIDS clinic in London.

"It felt genuine," Hodgins said. "It's only sad that, 20 years after we first learned about AIDS, a gesture like this still has to be made."

Segments also will be webcast on www.kaiser network.org/aids2002.

Herald writer Danny Rivero contributed to this report.

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