Tomorrow is International AIDS Awareness Day. The theme this year is accountability. Those of us who attended this summer's International AIDS Conference in Toronto heard a good deal of discussion about accountability which we're anxious to share and which, clearly, is of interest to fellow Tufts students. Again and again we're asked, "What can I do?"
A major focus of the AIDS Conference involved looking critically at the response of governments and NGOs to the HIV/AIDS crisis over the past 25 years. On the fourth full day of the conference, Mark Heywood, a South African HIV/AIDS activist, went so far as to call for the resignation of the current Minister of Health in his country. When a 15-year-old Canadian student asked the "What can I do?" question to Bill Clinton and Bill Gates, there was an awkward silence followed by vague and inadequate responses.
But there are things we can do. On a local level, Tufts has been offering student outreach opportunities for many years. Much of this work has been a great asset to the communities we have worked with and enormously satisfying to those who have participated.
At the same time, we have discovered, to our great regret, that some of the organizations with which we've been working are no longer in operation. One wishes their disappearance could be attributed to the elimination of the need for outreach services. Instead, all too often, this has been the result of funding shortfalls, particularly for those organizations not strictly adhering to the White House policy of abstinence.
Nonetheless, there remains a great deal of opportunity for those of us who are interested in meaningfully educating ourselves and taking action, rather than just studying the disease in an academic fashion.
Why should we be so concerned?
Because, on this very day, 16,000 people will die of HIV/AIDS, and 8,000 people become newly infected with a disease that is 100% preventable.
HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, currently infects 42 million people worldwide. When it was first recognized in the United States, many considered AIDS to be a primarily male, homosexual, Haitian or intravenous drug user's disease. But today, those most affected by HIV/AIDS are women, poor people and people of color. Although African-Americans and Latinos represented 13 percent and 14 percent of the U.S. population, respectively, in 2004, they accounted for 49 percent and 20 percent of new AIDS diagnosesm respectively. In short, AIDS is much more than a biomedical disease: It is a pandemic that is spreading in ways strongly related to power and gender inequality, to homophobia, to racism, to discrimination and to poverty. Individually and collectively, these forms of structural violence have greatly exacerbated the spread of the pandemic, while limiting the opportunities for discourse, prevention and intervention that are paramount to saving lives.
Because our government isn't doing enough.
While President Bush impressed the world in 2003 with a $15 billion initiative to "turn the tide" against AIDS, his plan, known as PEPFAR (the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) required that 33 percent of all prevention funding be spent on abstinence and fidelity programs. Condoms could only be offered for "highest-risk groups," not more broadly to sexually active populations. And most of this money was earmarked for expenditure by faith-based groups.
The abstinence-centered approach has proven ineffective in combating AIDS. Indeed, it has been shown to increase HIV transmission in several countries. By contrast, comprehensive sex education tends to delay the initiation of sexual activity, reduce the number of sexual partners and increase condom use. PEPFAR also does not support clean needle exchanges or other programs designed to protect injection drug users from contracting HIV. Numerous studies have found that such harm reduction strategies significantly reduce HIV transmission without increasing drug use.
Because we can make a difference.
We can all be a part of the fight against AIDS no matter how much money, time or travel experience we have. Students are sometimes surprised to hear that simply by talking, by beginning a simple conversation over dinner, in class or at the workplace, they can help engage and educate themselves and others in a meaningful way. Each of us can spread the word further by influencing government officials to make the fight against global AIDS a top priority; oftentimes, all this takes is a phone call to a member of Congress, or a letter to the editor of a newspaper.
Because we are all at risk.
As many as one-quarter of infected Americans do not know they are HIV-positive. The only way to know for sure is to be tested. It is normal to be nervous about getting tested, but those of us who are sexually active owe it to ourselves and our loved ones to be tested, and then to inform current and future partners of our status. Confidential testing and counseling is available through the Tufts Health Service or at Planned Parenthood in Davis Square (1-800-230-PLAN).
Dorothy Levinson and Morissa Sobelson are the chairs of the Tufts HIV/AIDS Collaborative.
