Obama’s AIDS Strategy Team Meets and Greets Advocates to Quell Fears Over Community Input
Posted by , February 26, 2010 at 12:40am
At the National HIV/AIDS Strategy meeting Wednesday some 200 advocates were introduced to the government officials on the Federal HIV/AIDS Interagency Working Group in charge of drafting the National HIV/AIDS Strategy.
The major purpose of this meeting, hastily announced with just a week’s notice, was to assure the AIDS community of transparency of the process. Before the meeting, there were off-the-record whispers that the National HIV/AIDS Strategy town halls and other public comments were just window-dressing. At Wednesday’s meeting, officials took pains to say that community input would be part of the final plan, which is is not yet written.
Some of the topics cited as emerging from these meetings included gay and bisexual youth; cultural and linguistic barriers; early diagnosis; structural issues such as housing; dental; needle exchange; strong coordination across agencies. They also said members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA) would be meeting and would have input into the process.
“For group not to use community input after they insisted over and over that they are, would have to be a conspiracy of large magnitude,” said Housing Works Vice President of National Advocacy and Organizing Christine Campbell.
Others expressed concerns about the haphazard nature of the meeting. David Munar, vice president for policy and communications at the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, said he was disappointed at the short notice because he wanted to attend the meeting but wasn’t able to fly in from Chicago.
“It would have been unethical of me to purchase a $1,000 ticket,” Munar said.
The meeting didn’t result in the release of new information and was meant as a meet and greet to build trust among D.C. based advocates and the government officials on the taskforce.
“The meeting didn’t seem as though it was designed to be very, very open,” said Housing Works Director of National Organizing Larry Bryant. “It was designed to be a window as to what’s going on.”
What we know
Because of federal regulations, all members of the taskforce are governmental officials, leaving community advocates wary about their places the process.
Members of the taskforce come from various U.S. agencies including Director of Office of HIV/AIDS Housing at Housing and Urban Development (HUD) David Vos, Office of Management and Budget; the director of National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Kevin Fenton; and Director of the Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of HIV/AIDS Policy Christopher Bates.
The only federal department noticeably absent from the list was the Department of Education, which said it didn’t have a staff person that could give the time committment expected of this project. There are three subcommittees that address each of the HIV/AIDS Strategy goals: Reduce the number of new HIV infections (HIV incidence); increase access to care for people living with HIV and optimize health outcomes; and reduce HIV-related disparities. Each subcommittee is chaired by a White House Office of National AIDS Policy (ONAP) staffer.
There were three breakout sessions at Wednesday’s meeting designed around the three goals of the National AIDS Strategy that functioned more as cocktail parties without cocktails than information-gathering sessions. But in the incidence-reporting session, officials were peppered with questions. AIDS Institute Director of Federal Affairs Carl Schmid asked about cost implications and was assured that Office of Management and Budget officials will be in every taskforce so that spending is taken into account.
Advocates were happy with the make-up of the panel, many of whom have long track records working on HIV/AIDS issues and working with the HIV/AIDS community.
“We know these people, so we should be using these points of contacts to let our voices be heard,” Campbell said.
Although nothing substantial came out of Wednesday’s meeting, some advocates feel that the process shows that the Obama administration is making an effort to move forward in the fight against HIV/AIDS in the United States.
“I think a lot of people are doing a really hard work. These processes take a lot longer than any of us want them to, but we have a focus on the domestic agenda that we haven’t had in the past,” said A. Toni Young, executive director of the Community Education Group.
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