July 25, 2008
SAVING THE SOUTH
 |
The epidemic is growing in these red states |
More than 250 people gathered in Birmingham, Alabama this week at the first-ever Southern Access Summit. The summit centered around the release of the Southern States Manifesto: Update 2008. This report addresses the AIDS epidemic in the South and measures improvements since the first Southern States Manifesto was issued in 2002.
"One really positive thing since 2002 is there's more focus on the South. Eight years ago, no one thought about the South being the U.S. center of the epidemic," said Southern AIDS Coalition (SAC) community co-chair Kathie Hiers. Hiers and SAC government co-chair Evelyn Foust were honored with the Stephen G. Sherman Award at the summit for their work in addressing the AIDS epidemic in the South.
The conference was organized by SAC, founded in 2001 to fight AIDS in the South. The organization is growing and a grant from the Ford Foundation will enable it to hire an executive director this year. Conference attendees included Congresswomen Donna Christian-Cristensen (D-VI), numerous state AIDS directors, and southerners with HIV/AIDS, who made up about one-third of conference participants.
Headed South
The report noted improvements in the region, including a sharp decrease in ADAP waiting lists in North Carolina and South Carolina and increased testing initiatives in Tennessee, North Carolina and Florida. "We certainly need to get more allocations for the whole country, but I will say the $300 million shifted to us in Ryan White money helped us get rid of all the waiting lists. [A fully funded AIDS Drug Assistance Program] is something that most states take for granted," Hiers said.
But such gains were overshadowed by the continual rise of new infections and the lack of government commitment at the national, state and local levels. Although only 36 percent of all U.S. residents lived in the South in 2006, the region accounted for 52 percent of the country's estimated HIV cases that year. Blacks are particularly hard-hit, accounting for 58 percent of new AIDS cases in the South, while only accounting for 19 percent of the region's population.
"For those persons in political power both at the county and the city level, this is a document that needs to get into their hands," said Dr. Bambi Gaddist, executive director of S.C. HIV/AIDS Council. "We still have too many leaders who remain uninformed and choose to be so because they can't move past the moral issue and recognize AIDS as a public health issue."
In 2002 the Southern Manifesto made waves highlighting the HIV/AIDS problem in the South and asking for federal funding to be redistributed to reflect the South's growing HIV/AIDS epidemic. Not only is the number of new infections growing, but states haven't matched federal AIDS dollars the way New York, California and some other hard hit states have. This fight over the funding pie turned ugly during the 2005 Ryan White CARE Act reauthorization. Ryan White will be up for reauthorization once again next year. Advocates and health officials made clear at the conference that they weren't trying to undermine efforts in other regions, but rather make sure the South's epidemic is addressed.
Planning to plan
"An inherent battle occurs during reauthorization, and people view us as myopic in our agenda," Gaddist said. "But if you look at the flow of funding, we need more equity, and that involves an increasing investment at the federal, local and state perspective, as well as from the corporate community. We send millions and millions overseas and that's a good thing. But there's another part of the conversation that we have Africa right here."
One difference between the U.S. and foreign countries that receive PEPFAR dollars is that other countries must create a national strategy to address the AIDS epidemic in order to receive U.S. dollars, yet the U.S. doesn't have one. The Stand Against AIDS, a cross-country caravan trip to Oxford, Mississippi at the first presidential debate will bring together activists who want presumptive presidential nominees Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama to commit to creating a national AIDS strategy in their first 100 days in office.
"The Southern States Manifesto will prove invaluable showing what the South needs when a national AIDS strategy is conducted," said Christine Campbell, Housing Works Director of National Advocacy and Organizing.