August 8, 2008
BOTTOM OF THE CLASS
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Walt Senterfitt at the CDC demo |
"Condoms, needles, housing, AIDS treatment now! The U.S. fails on AIDS!"
Hundreds of U.S. activists at the International AIDS Conference on Thursday held up "F"s as they called for a national AIDS strategy and a plan to end AIDS in the U.S. The activists marched their failing grades up to the front of the conference stage where the CDC's director of the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention Kevin Fenton was speaking. Fenton was attempting to explain away the CDC's report released this week that showed a 40 percent increase in the annual incidence of HIV in the U.S.
Because of improved data, the annual U.S. infection rate is believed to be 56,300 a year, as opposed to the previously reported 40,000 number. Forty-five percent of new infections are among blacks, and 53 percent of new infections are among men who have sex with men, with numbers in this population increasing since 2000. Fenton said the CDC has "already begun" to work with these populations and that infections have "stabilized."
"The CDC is a failed institution at this point," said New York City AIDS Housing Network's Charles Long at a press conference about Fenton's speech. "As a black HIV-positive gay man I find it deplorable to say I'm 'stabilized.'"
ACT UP Philadelphia's Waheedah Shabazz-El agreed. "I was confused to where the urgency was," she said. "Activists have been giving solutions for a long time, and they haven't been listening." Shabazz-El called for "prevention justice," which means addressing poverty, homelessness, the prison-industrial complex and structural impediments to fighting the epidemic.
Click here for more videos and photos from the CDC action. The coalition of activists involved included CHAMP, ACT UP Philadelphia, NYCAHN, Health GAP and Housing Works.Although Fenton said the new HIV incidence findings should be a "wake-up call," the CDC has been wide awake to this reality for a while, sitting on the new numbers since October 2007.
As AIDS Foundation of Chicago's David Munar wrote in his blog post on AIDS2008.com "An earlier release might have given the Bush administration second thoughts about requesting a $1 million decrease for CDC's domestic HIV prevention programs; spurred presidential candidates to talk more readily about HIV/AIDS in the U.S.; persuaded media pundits and debate moderators to quiz candidates on plans to end the epidemic; led Congress to pass even one of the dozen domestic HIV prevention bills languishing on Capitol Hill or motivated appropriators to finally boost HIV prevention funding or end long-held restrictions on how funding can be used. No, instead the cult of embargoes prevailed, with no account to the burgeoning public health crisis the very paper in question describes. "
While the fact that annual infection rates were up was the worst-kept secret of the year, the CDC's secrecy prevailed until this week, when activists leaked the report two days before it was to be released. The CDC canceled a press conference scheduled for the first day of the IAC, perhaps unwilling to face an informed media.National plan gaining momentum
While the higher incidence numbers are disturbing and the CDC response disheartening, these troubling statistics, as well as the Black AIDS Institute's report "Left Behind! Black America: A Neglected Priority in the Global AIDS Epidemic have prompted more talk about addressing the AIDS epidemic in the U.S. then we've seen in a while. Fenton and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) both signaled their support for a national AIDS strategy. "What we need is a domestic PEPFAR," Lee said. Although the U.S. government doesn't have a national AIDS plan, it requires countries receiving PEPFAR funding to have one.
The bad news from the CDC prompted Sen. Barack Obama to call for a national AIDS strategy. "These new figures should bring new focus to our efforts to address AIDS and HIV here at home," Obama said in a statement. John McCain did not call for a national AIDS strategy, but issued a statement saying, "By focusing efforts on reducing drug costs through greater market competition, promoting prevention efforts, encouraging testing, targeting communities with high infection rates, strengthening research and reducing disparities through effective public outreach, we as a nation can make great progress in fighting HIV/AIDS."
In September, the Campaign to End AIDS (C2EA) will organize the Stand Against AIDS, a multi-arm cross-country road trip and march to demand that the next U.S. president take significant steps toward the creation of a National AIDS Strategy within 100 days of taking office. Hundreds of people living with HIV/AIDS will travel in eight different automotive caravans from around the country and one "walking" caravan (from Jackson to Oxford) to build support for C2EA's National AIDS Strategy demand. The activists will converge in Oxford, Mississippi on September 23, 2008, for three days of action leading up to the first presidential debate between Obama and McCain on September 26.