Date: Wed, 12 Mar 97 16:44:42 EST From: "ngltf" Subject: OP-ED: The End of AIDS? ********************************************************************* National Gay and Lesbian Task Force OPINION EDITORIAL Contact: John D'Emilio 202/332-6483 ext. 3302 jdemilio@ngltf.org 2320 17th Street NW, Washington, DC 20009 http://www.ngltf.org ********************************************************************* The End of AIDS? Not Exactly By Dr. John D'Emilio, Director NGLTF Policy Insitute From the beginning, the AIDS epidemic has been short on good tidings. For most of the last sixteen years, we have had to content ourselves with developments that held "promise." For instance, identifying the HIV virus back in 1983 was a first small step toward effective therapies or a cure. Developing a test that detected antibodies, streamlining the protocols for drug testing and approval, winning passage of the Ryan White Care Act: each one of these achievements was important and worthwhile as a step toward the big goal, the end of AIDS--which, unfortunately, remained as elusive as ever. With so few encouraging signs for so long on the AIDS front, the headlines of the last year have naturally been welcome. First, there was the news pouring out of the international AIDS conference in Vancouver last summer about the astounding improvements in health that new combination drug therapies were provoking in many people with AIDS. The scientific reports were so powerful in part because they complemented what many of us were either experiencing directly, or by observation: many people with AIDS were enjoying remarkable improvements in health. In some cases, it seemed as if the dead were returning to life. Then, just last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that, for the first time since the epidemic began, the number of deaths from AIDS declined during the first half of 1996, by 12% from the first six months of 1995. Meanwhile, New York City, one of the epicenters of the epidemic, has collected statistics for all of 1996, and reports a significantly more dramatic decline in the number of deaths. There's no denying that these developments represent very hopeful news. But they disturb as much as they encourage me because of the way they have been presented in the press, and because of the inferences that many might read into them. From many places, it seems, these glimmers of hope are eliciting the view that the end of AIDS is in sight. While nothing would make me happier, such a conclusion is as dangerous as it is wrongheaded and unwarranted. Think about it: ù While the press makes much ado about the first yearly decline in the number of deaths from AIDS, the figure for 1996 is likely to be as high as the total caseload was in 1986! Try to remember how crazy we all were ten years ago: crazed with rage and grief and frustration; crazed enough to launch a militant direct action campaign via ACT UP; crazed enough to plan a nationwide march on Washington that drew three-quarters of a million people. A "decline" in deaths to 40,000 per year is an improvement; it does not spell the end to AIDS. ù While new drug therapies are having extraordinary life-enhancing effects on some people with AIDS, there are many others for whom the new drug therapies don't work. We also don't yet know how long their effectiveness will last; whether the virus will develop resistance to the drugs; or whether other strains of the virus will continue to spread despite these medical advances. These therapies are developing, moreover, in a political context in which government is relentlessly slashing taxes and expenditures, and a social context in which large numbers of Americans lack health insurance. Who will pay for these therapies? What will happen to PWAs who lack the resources to obtain expensive treatments? Drug therapies that work for some is a good thing, but it, too, does not spell the end to AIDS. ù What do articles and headlines speculating about the fanciful end of AIDS accomplish other than to whittle away at the edges of the AIDS movement? Such claims make it more difficult to raise money, to recruit volunteers, to persuade legislators to up their commitment, and to spread convincingly a prevention message. In other words, even the hypothesis that the epidemic is ending can serve to make the end more distant. I don't want to sound like an old curmudgeon. I don't want to pour water on the hopefulness that some good news engenders. But we need to be very clear about what the end of AIDS would really look like: no more deaths from AIDS, and a prevention effort that leads to an absence of new infections. We are not there yet, and we will only get there through the implementation of policies that require political courage: needle exchange; prevention campaigns that speak frankly about sexual behavior; a level of funding that will accelerate medical breakthroughs; and a national commitment to health care access for everyone. The pious intoning of phrases like "the end of AIDS" won't get us there. Political mobilization and moral courage will. ### Dr. John D'Emilio is a noted historian and author. His works include Making Trouble: Essays on Gay History, Politics and the University (Routledge, 1992), Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States, 1940-1970 (University of Chicago Press, 1983), and he is the co- author of Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (Harper and Row, 1988). He is currently working on a biography of the late Bayard Rustin. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force is the oldest national gay and lesbian group and 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. If you have any questions regarding this post, please direct them to one of the contacts at the top of this message If you wish to UNSUBSCRIBE from this list, please send an email with "UNSUBSCRIBE PRESSLIST" in the subject and body of your email message to .