AIDS Issues Update: News:
Ho, Ho, Ho! AIDS Activists Carol Outside Clinton’s NY Home
“You better watch out
You better not cry
You better fight AIDS
I’m telling you why
Activists are here at your house!”
Holding candles and wearing santa hats, 30 activists staged an evening of Christmas caroling outside Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s home in Chappaqua, New York yesterday. The activists changed the words to “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” (“AIDS Activists Are Here at Your House”); “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” (Hillary, the Red-Nosed Envoy); and other holiday classics to remind Clinton and President Obama about the promises they both made as presidential candidates to increase funding for people with AIDS worldwide.
The reauthorization of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief authorizes $48 billion to fight global AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria over five years, but in the 2010 budget cycle President Obama only allocated $4.6 billion for PEPFAR—a three percent increase over the pre-reauthorization total that doesn’t keep pace with inflation. In addition, this year the Obama administration decreased funding to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. As candidates for President, both Secretary of State Clinton and President Obama committed to address this by agreeing to increase funding for global AIDS to $50 billion over five years.
The activists who gathered at Clinton’s house (or rather, almost at her house, since they were blocked by police barricades at the end of her street) traveled to Chappaqua from New York, Philadelphia and Boston, and included members of Health GAP, Housing Works, ACT Up Philadelphia and New York City AIDS Housing Network. The action targeted Secretary of State Clinton because she has the ear of President Obama and PEPFAR is under her jurisdiction and released through the State Department. Clinton was expected to spend the night at her Chappaqua home, though it was not clear if she had yet when the activists were there from 5:30 to 6 p.m.
“Secretary Clinton has been a champion of global AIDS efforts, but she is letting us down by not pushing for increased funding for global AIDS,” said Antonio Davis of ACT UP Philadelphia. “In 2011, the US should be providing $9.25 billion for global AIDS. By carolling, we’re telling Secretary Clinton, lyrically, that she needs to keep her promise to increase funding. Millions of people worldwide are depending on her to keep her promise.”
Worldwide 70 percent of people with HIV/AIDS still go without access to lifesaving medication, and AIDS is the number one cause of death for women of reproductive age worldwide. As a result or this chronic underfunding, humanitarian groups including Doctors Without Borders have documented accounts of people in developing countries who had been promised access to AIDS treatment and have now been told to wait.
“The consequences are apparent. Our teams on the ground see other health providers who ration treatment and are advised not to treat new patients unless current ones die or disappear. Countries are reducing treatment targets and people are at risk of treatment disruption. This comes at a time when new World Health Organization guidelines call for people with HIV to begin treatment earlier,” Doctors Without Borders executive director Sophie Delaunay wrote in a letter to the Washington Post.
In letter to the President last week, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) and other House members expressed concerned that “continued rapid roll out of AIDS treatment is endangered in Africa” and said the White House needed to dramatically ramp up funding in the Fiscal Year 2011 budget. A similar letter was sent by key senators including Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Dick Durbin (D-IL).
Your inside source for in-depth activism news is updated daily by Staff Writer, Julie Turkewitz
