San Francisco Chronicle - Wednesday, July 10, 2002
Sabin Russell, Chronicle Medical Writer

At a raucous noontime session of the 14th International AIDS Conference, Thompson declared that "no administration in any nation has ever made fighting HIV-AIDS as high a priority," but virtually no one in the huge room could hear him as a group of about 30 chanting protesters crowded onstage with him.

The protesters began blowing whistles and shouting "Shame! Shame! and "No more lies!" as Thompson came to the podium. They continued until he finished his address. There was no violence or attempt to stop the demonstration, and there were no arrests.

It was a replay of a scene at the AIDS conference in San Francisco 12 years ago, when Dr. Louis Sullivan, health and human services secretary under President Bush's father, was drowned out by protesters using megaphones and whistles. Ironically, Sullivan was sitting in the audience in Barcelona during Tuesday's protest. He could not be reached for comment.

Meanwhile, international AIDS experts said they would draft a "global plan of action" to raise and spend at least $10 billion a year to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, scourges that are bringing incalculable misery to Africa and much of the developing world.

Stephen Lewis, U.N. special envoy on AIDS in Africa, labeled the $10 billion figure "a moral and economic minimum" required to turn the tide of the epidemic, expected to kill 68 million people in the next two decades. Current world spending is estimated to be $2.8 billion.

The United States' $500 million commitment over three years to the U.N. Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria was one-fourth of the pledges made so far, a greater share than any other nation's, according to Thompson's written remarks.

In addition, he cited the Bush administration's plan to spend another $500 million over 18 months to provide HIV-infected pregnant women in African and Caribbean nations with antiviral drugs to protect their newborns. "We have doubled international funding in just 18 months," he said.

In a brief meeting with reporters after completing his speech, he said the United States would continue to increase its global AIDS spending "as long as there are accountability and performance standards."

Protesters took issue with Thompson's characterization, calling the contributions "miserly." Asia Russell of the Philadelphia protest group Health Gap Coalition said Uganda's $1 million contribution was one-third higher per person than the $200 million actually paid thus far by the United States to the Global Fund. She accused donor nations of breaking previous pledges to finance AIDS treatment and prevention programs.

Russell, a leader of the attempt to disrupt Thompson's speech, said the action was justified. "We don't disrupt the flow of scientific information here," she said. "But we will confront politicians and others whose policies stand in the way of people with AIDS getting what they need to live."

At a press conference later in the afternoon, renowned Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs said Thompson should not have been surprised by the protests because Bush and his appointees had not "done their homework."

Sachs said the administration was "utterly confused" about global AIDS issues and "has failed the most in meeting the challenge at this point." In the new phase of AIDS policy, the international community needs "a global plan of action and money in the bank," he said.

The United States' share of international spending on AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria should be $3.5 billion a year, with $2.5 billion spent on the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and $1 billion in direct AID to programs chosen by the U.S. government, Sachs said.

Peter Piot, executive director of the Joint U.N. Program on HIV-AIDS, known as UNAIDS, said the $10 billion figure was not "picked out of the blue sky" by international experts but was a conservative estimate, "definitely a minimum and a start."

But with only a third of that amount raised from a variety of sources, Piot said the amount must rise "50 percent per year, every year," if U.N. goals to arrest the epidemic were to be met.

U.N. officials acknowledge that the United States is contributing about 45 percent of all international assistance to AIDS programs -- an amount roughly proportional to its 40 percent share of the world's richest nations' combined gross national products.

They contend, however, that all these nations should pay much more and need leadership from the United States to do so. "If the United States put in $2.56 billion, the world would get maybe $5 billion to $7 billion" as other nations followed suit, Sachs explained.

The Washington Post contributed to this report. / E-mail Sabin Russell at srussell@sfchronicle.com.
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