Date: Sat, 18 Jan 97 20:33:46 EST From: ngltf@ngltf.org Subject: OP-ED: Response to National AIDS Strategy ********************************************************************* National Gay and Lesbian Task Force OPINION-EDITORIAL Contact: Tracey Conaty 202/332-6483 x3303 tconaty@ngltf.org pager 1-800/757-6476 Keith Anastasi 202/332-6483 x3213 kanastasi@ngltf.org 2320 17th Street NW, Washington, DC 20009 http://www.ngltf.org ********************************************************************* Below is an opinion/commentary written by Keith A. Anastasi of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute. The commentary, "A Decade Late", discusses the Clinton administration's 1997 National AIDS Strategy. Keith is a Program Associate at NGLTF who has lived with HIV for over 10 years. ------- Government Response to AIDS: A Decade Late Keith A. Anastasi, Program Associate NGLTF Policy Institute Fifteen years into the AIDS epidemic and over 300,000 lives lost, and the federal government recently released its first National Aids Strategy. Outgoing National AIDS Policy Director Patricia Fleming boasts in the foreword; "the appendices to this report lay out, for the first time, detailed descriptions of the objectives and goals... involved in the Federal response to HIV." Nearly two decades of sickness and death and the government is praising the release of its first strategy to deal with the worst public health crisis in modern history. Our government should be embarrassed that it has taken over a decade to produce a National AIDS Strategy. I have lived with HIV, dealt with our federal system of care, and fought for the needs of people with HIV/AIDS and those struggling to remain uninfected for over 10 years. I had hope the report would outline the programs and funding we desperately need and that our government was finally getting serious about a solution for the complex problems of the epidemic. The report falls well short of that hope. The report shows that HIV infection among young people, people of color- particularly women of color, and the poor continues to rise in disproportionate numbers. With HIV spreading dramatically in the South the strategy to deal with these problems remains inadequate. Letting local communities determine and create "innovative prevention efforts " is not sufficient when racism, sexism and homophobia continue to interfere with HIV/AIDS education efforts. The federal government working with HIV/AIDS educators from all communities must develop a basic standard of accurate, explicit, cultural and language appropriate education information that schools and communities are required to provide. The report contains virtually no mention of how the government plans to deal with the increasing spread of HIV in prisons and the specific needs of prisoners living with HIV/AIDS. Condoms and latex dams are still not available in state and federal prisons and inmates with HIV/AIDS struggle to get proper medical care, nutritious food, and medication. Ignoring that sex and Intravenous Drug use is going on in our prisons will not make the problem go away. The government needs to develop a strategy to deal with these problems; and this report does not offer a plan. In the area of research the report proposes some of the strategies the AIDS community has demanded for years. For example, The Forum for Collaborative HIV Research, a new group designed "to catalyze collaborations among government researchers, pharmaceutical companies, third party payers, and the community," is an idea similar to one veteran AIDS Activist Larry Kramer suggested over a decade ago. I supported Larry Kramer's "Manhattan Project" then and I support the government's watered down version now. We have waited too long for the government to take the lead in developing a collaborative effort to fight AIDS. The development of a vaccine to prevent further infection must remain a top priority but cannot overshadow the need to provide care for those already infected. Care for people living with HIV/AIDS along with the development of a cure must be our nation's top priority. Continued funding of the Ryan White Care Act is an integral part of providing care for people with HIV/AIDS but it alone does not meet the needs of those infected. Mr. Clinton must continue the fight to preserve Medicaid coverage for the more than 50 percent of adults and 90 percent of children with AIDS who rely upon it. The struggle to provide housing for people with HIV/AIDS is an ongoing problem yet the report does not support strongly enough the reauthorization of Housing Opportunities for People With AIDS (HOPWA) set to go before the 105th Congress. With this important program up for reauthorization in 1997, the Clinton administration must commit itself to protecting HOPWA's funding. Without HOPWA thousands of people with HIV/AIDS could go homeless. The preservation of these and other existing programs is not enough. No strategy is complete until the people it means to help receive all the help they need. The federal government increased funding for State AIDS Drug Assistance Programs (ADAP) yet they still remain underfunded with many programs on the verge of collapse. As a person that depends on ADAP for my HIV treatment, I wait on additional funding to expand this program while my life hangs in the balance. The fact is, thousands of people with HIV/AIDS are not receiving life saving drugs like Protease Inhibitors, the latest and most effective treatments for HIV, because they are not available through state or federal programs like ADAP and are too expensive to afford otherwise. The government's contribution in the development of these treatments must include a guarantee that every man, women and child with HIV/AIDS in America will receive them regardless of their ability to pay. The National AIDS Strategy does not do that and it should. The rise in infection among Intravenous Drug users indicates the government's failure to design and fund programs that work to prevent addicts and their partners from becoming infected. The report states, "HIV transmission is closely related to substance abuse" but its strategy fails to provide a National Needle Exchange Program. The Clinton administration has failed to display the political will to approve a program the governments own studies indicate will dramatically reduce the number of HIV infections. In explaining that "substance abuse treatment is a major form of HIV prevention" the report fails to mention that major cuts in funding for substance abuse treatment programs in 1996 make it more difficult to educate addicts and help them recover. The national strategy's section dealing with civil rights does not go far enough. We still battle discriminatory legislation such as measures that criminalize sex by HIV positive people or deny them the opportunity to serve in the armed services. Access to comprehensive, affordable health insurance for uninsured people with HIV/AIDS is still not a legally protected right. There is no strategy to deal with cross- border HIV/AIDS issues, a problem that severely taxes communities trying to coordinate education and service efforts with neighboring countries and deal with complex immigration issues. Our government should take the lead in dealing with these issues but again fails to do so. The 1997 National AIDS Strategy is a long awaited and alarming beginning. It simply provides a framework from which a complete and thorough strategy can develop. It is often a rehashing of information and ideas that the HIV/AIDS community has been discussing and trying to grapple with for years. The budgetary appendices of the report make it clear that our work is far from over. Our communities will continue to struggle to care for people with HIV and AIDS. At times the report devotes as much space to praising the Clinton administration for its past accomplishments as it does to laying out an effective plan for the future. We now must continue to fight for our lives and for the funding and programs the government, with over a decade of experience and information to work with, has failed to provide. ----- The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force is a progressive organization that has supported grassroots organizing and pioneered in national advocacy since 1973. Since its inception, NGLTF has been at the forefront of virtually every major initiative for lesbian and gay rights. In all its efforts, NGLTF helps to strengthen the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender movement at the state level while connecting these activities to a national vision for change. ### _________________________________________ This message was issued by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Media Department. 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