JACK AND MBALI: Eradicate AIDS now

Reposted from Yale Daily News

By Helen Jack, Mandisa Mbali

Guest Columnists

Thursday, September 15, 2011

We are part of the AIDS generation: we are too young to have lived in a world without the disease. Throughout our lives, the specter of HIV has influenced our relationships and responsibilities to others. We want to see a world free of this disease and now, for the first time, we believe it’s possible. As we strategize for an AIDS-free world, we can look to the past for guidance, and especially, the eradication of smallpox.

This June, a groundbreaking study made a once unthinkable prospect — the eradication of AIDS — imaginable. The HIV Prevention Trials Network studied 1763 couples in which only one partner was living with HIV, but taking a cocktail of antiretroviral drugs. The Network recently announced that there was a 96 percent reduction in HIV transmission to the uninfected partner.

This finding is already making waves internationally. Just after it was announced, world leaders at the UN committed to placing 15 million people on HIV treatment by 2015. This is a noble goal, but one which the UN estimates will require $6 billion in additional donor funding per year.

Mission Crash: The Intolerable Policy Incoherence in US AIDS Policy, Global and Domestic

by Professor Brook Baker

For the past three years, US global health pundits in the White House have been calling for greater efficiencies, for a renewed focus on prevention rather than treatment to turn the tide of new infections, and paradoxically for reduced expectations because fiscal realities and budget reductions are the order of the day.  They have bemoaned the HIV/AIDS treatment mortgage and espoused unmet needs in other priority global health arenas, like child and maternal health, neglected diseases, and even chronic conditions.  Their talking game is strong.  When jobs are lost at home, when formal unemployment hovers near 10%, when an entire generation of young people look forward to dimming job prospect, why shouldn't we turn inward, protect our own, and hunker down into a bunker mentality? When federal deficits soar, we we continue to spend, individually and collectively, more than we earn, when our excesses are subsidized from creditors abroad, some of whom may jump currencies and call in their loans if our national debt becomes too onerous, why shouldn't we cut back, deep and hard, anywhere and everywhere we can?

GOP 2011 spending plan = death

Last Friday, House Republicans announced their 2011 budget proposal, including $813 million in cuts to global AIDS programs.

Here's what that would mean:

• Over 1 million people with AIDS, mostly poor people of color in the global south, will die because they will lose access to AIDS treatment, or never get it to begin with;
• 68,000 babies will be born with HIV because their mothers can't get medication to prevent transmission;
• Over 400,000 people with TB won't be able to get treatment;
• And they're trying to reinstate the federal ban on funding of syringe exchange, which would deny life-saving prevention tools to drug users in the US and worldwide.

This is bad news to people with HIV across the globe. You can read more on Health GAP's website here.

5 days 'til Obama's 2012 budget comes out...

Action alert shared from Health GAP. Please try to call your Senator today!


Last week, Senators Schumer and Gillibrand, who are both from New York, sent a letter to President Obama, expressing their "strong support for increased funding to combat HIV/AIDS in Africa and throughout the world." This is big news, because President Obama strongly considers the input from Senators when developing his budget proposal, which is due on Monday.

However, one letter isn't enough. As the Obama Administration finalizes their 2012 budget, and we are becoming increasingly worried that AIDS funding may see a cut. Can you call your Senators today, and ask them to send a letter like the one Senators Schumer and Gillibrand sent? Click here to find their phone numbers.

You can read the whole Schumer/Gillibrand letter here. It's a great model of what other Senators should send to the White House by the end of this week. In fact, you can even forward the letter to your Senators, after you call, to show them how easy it is to follow their example.

Want to know how to call your Senator and make sure they hear your opinion? Click here to see the easy, step-by-step process. 

This is a make-or-break moment for the fight against AIDS. There are literally millions of people who's lives hang in the balance. Historically, what the White House budget requests is only changed slightly by Congress, so it is critical that the White House budget include significant new funding for global AIDS programs.

Can you call your Senator now? Click here to learn more.

Ugandan activists encourage Candidates to fight AIDS

by Florence Buluba (ICW East Africa), Asia Russell (Health GAP), Ivan Kintu (NACWOLA)

BACKGROUND: The 2011 Stop AIDS Platform Campaign returned to the region of West Nile January 28-31 in order to intensify pressure on political parties to commit themselves to the 10-point platform on ending the AIDS crisis in Uganda. (The campaign’s 10-point platform is available here).

January 29 Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) Presidential Candidate Dr. Kizza Besigye was coming to campaign in the town of Arua, followed by Democratic Party (DP) Presidential Candidate Hon. Norbert Mao in Arua on February 3. Advocates wanted to get both the FDC and DP on record campaigning prominently on the issue of HIV treatment and prevention in a region with some of the toughest existing opposition and battleground elections. In West Nile the media are paying attention to ongoing election dynamics since the party primaries in late 2010. Importantly the ruling party (the National Resistance Movement or NRM) is also paying close attention—because losing many Parliamentary seats in West Nile as well as an increased proportion of votes for opposition Presidential candidates on election day will reveal growing weakness in the party.

The Global Fund is under attack

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria is under attack. A report from the Global Fund's Office of the Inspector General shows that 0.3% of funding may have been mismanaged. But opponents of the Global Fund have actively distorted this report, looking for excuses not to fund the Global Fund as promised. They even duped the Associated Press into publishing a misleading story in hundreds of papers around the world, which the AP had to “correct.”

We need to fight back against biased media reports that are being planted by opponents of the Global Fund. Will you write a letter to the editor to your paper and lay out the facts?

The facts speak for themselves.

• $13 billion has been dispersed in 154 countries, and that funding has saved over six million lives. About $34 million (0.3%) of that funding may have been subject to fraud.
• Every dollar lost to fraud costs lives, so the Fund has worked hard and recovered nearly half of the missing money already, and is pushing to recover the rest. This is a solid track record, by any measure.
• The Global Fund is among the most transparent institutions in the world, and they make every audit report fully publicly available. But opponents are trying to use this against the Fund.

Since when did transparency and accountability become a bad thing?

No other global institution is as effective or transparent as the Global Fund. Could you imagine a big corporation releasing data on how much of their money was "mismanaged"? We need to make sure our leaders know that the Global Fund is a good investment - especially now, as the President and Congress begin work on the 2012 budget.

Writing a letter to the Editor is really easy. It's usually less than 200 words, and makes just one point (in this case, that the Global Fund is a model organization that is saving lives, and it shouldn't be punished for being transparent and accountable). We even have a fancy online tool you can use to build your letter and send it off to your paper. Click here to learn more.

If you want to learn more, click here to read a background paper from Health GAP on the Global Fund's commitment to saving lives in a transparent, accountable manner. Then, make sure you write to your local paper! We need to push back to make sure the Global Fund survives this vicious, unfounded attack.

The State of the Union tonight

Tonight, President Obama will deliver the State of the Union address to Congress. It's a chance for him to lay out his agenda for the next year to the nation, and to legislators.

Will keeping his promise to provide treatment for the millions of people with HIV in dire need be part of his message?

After the speech concludes, and for the next few days, senior White House advisors will be available on the White House's website to take questions about his speech. Can you submit a question to the advisors, to find out if President Obama plans to work to ensure that six million people worldwide have access to HIV treatment that is supported by the US government by 2013?

It's really easy to do, and you can do it through facebook, twitter, or on the White House website. If enough of us submit questions, we can get an answer.

Here's how to do it:
1. On Twitter: Reply to @whitehouse using the hashtag #sotu
2. On Facebook: Post your questions to the White House wall
3. On the White House Website: through the webform

If you'd like some help formulating a questions to ask, reply to this email and we can send you some ideas. In your question, you could include information about why you care, a fact you find interesting, or a comment on his speech. Make sure to include what you'd like him to do - commit to increasing funding for treatment for the millions of people with HIV worldwide who still don't have access to treatment.

When the President stands up to fight for a policy, or a program, it is much more likely to receive the funding needed. By going online after the State of the Union tonight, you can help make sure he knows that fighting global AIDS must be a priority. So watch tonight, and then make your voice heard.

Thank you for taking action!