Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1996. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
San Francisco Chronicle - The Voice of the West, 901 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94119 - Wednesday, December 18, 1996 - Page A24
The 40-page prescription approved by President Clinton and unveiled at the White House called for sustained research to find a cure and a vaccine; a reduction in new infections; guaranteed access to high- quality care for AIDS patients; fighting AIDS-related discrimination; U.S. leadership in the global campaign against AIDS, and a promise to ensure that research advances are translated into treatment as quickly as possible.
Significantly absent from the six-point plan of action was a lifting of the ban on federally-funded needle exchange programs that have been proven effective in reducing the spread of AIDS in the 50-or-so cities -- including San Francisco and Oak land -- where such programs operate with private or local funding.
Any serious campaign against AIDS must deal head-on with the burgeoning problem of HIV-infection among intravenous drug users and their sex partners. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 26 percent of all AIDS cases in 1995 were caused by tainted needles, up from about 17 percent a decade earlier. However, the most important and hopeful of Clinton's "simple, but vital" goals is the effort to find a vaccine, perhaps the only solution to the pandemic that has infected nearly 29 million people around the world since the early 1980s and is spreading at a rate of 8,500 cases a day. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 650,000 to 900,000 Americans are living with HIV/AIDS and some 343,000 have died of the disease in the United States.
"None of us can afford to sit by and watch this epidemic continue to take our neighbors, friends and loved ones from us," Clinton wrote in a letter accompanying the AIDS plan.
We heartily agree and will keep watching to see if the president and his staff follow through with this commendable -- if incomplete -- strategy against the scourge of AIDS.
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