AIDS Treatment News #181 - Aug 20 1993
John S. James
The American Public Health Association, a strong supporter of Dr. Elders, has outlined example after example of her achievements. She made prenatal care, and also children's health assessment and care, immunization, and food programs easier to obtain. For example, she changed the rules, so that when pregnant women came for prenatal care under Medicaid, care was given immediately, and Medicaid eligibility was determined later. Under her administration, women who received prenatal care in the first trimester rose from 66.5% to 71.4%, and the pre-natal death rate decreased from 13.0 to 12.6. Health assessments for Medicaid-eligible children increased from 4,186 to 45,252 per year, and immunization of 2-year-olds rose from 34% to 60%. Infant mortality declined, teenage abortions decreased 14%, and teenage syphilis decreased, despite rising in the South as a whole.
Under Dr. Elders, the number of student health centers in Arkansas increased from 1 in 1988 to 24 in 1992. In all cases, the local school boards decided to install the centers and decided what services would be provided. Two of the 24 school boards decided to provide condoms, and only to students with parental permission. This was turned into an accusation that Dr. Elders of distributed condoms in the schools.
Senators in both parties have said they will vote for Dr. Elders, but currently their mail and calls are running 5 to 1 against her -- because right-wing extremists have been better than anybody else at turning out calls and letters to politicians. The Senate must confirm her nomination, and is expected to vote on September 7 or 8.
What you can do is:
* Write or call both your Senators to support the confirmation of Dr. Elders. Address your letters to:
The Honorable ______________ United States Senate Washington, D. C. 20510
Or call your Senators, who can be reached through their local offices, or in Washington through the Capitol switchboard, 202/224-3121.
* You can help even more by finding friends and associates who will write or call on this issue, and can respond to future action alerts as the need arises. If you can help in this way, and want to receive action alerts in the future so that you can activate your own personal network, contact this writer at AIDS TREATMENT NEWS, and we will try to connect you to national or regional networks compatible with your interests.
Believe it or not, we do not yet have a national, grassroots, coalition response network for AIDS issues -- mainly because our political organizations have often behaved as rivals instead of cooperating for the common good. For now, people everywhere need to take the initiative, start their own networks, and press the organizations to do a better job.
Dr. Elders is important because she has shown that progress can be made against social problems often considered intractable; we do not need to fatalistically accept them. And the Elders nomination symbolizes the need to take our country back from extremists who play with life-and-death issues for personal power and aggrandizement.
Note: Some readers may ask how this issue concerns AIDS treatment, since the Surgeon General usually focuses mainly on disease prevention. The answer is that AIDS research, prevention, and care will all be more successful if we work together in coalition. Similarly, AIDS needs coalitions with cancer and other disease groups, to make medical research more prominent in the national agenda, so that there will be better treatments and cures for everyone.
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