On World AIDS day, GW Bush is walking around touting his usual mindless rhetoric. We’re going to beat the pandemic, he says. Well, maybe we will, but certainly if we do, it will be in spite of him and not because of him. It is chilling to listen to his distored ideology, especially when it comes to AIDS. He just can’t understand how some people just “don’t say no” to sex, and aren’t saving themselves for marriage. He just has no clue about poverty, societies where women can’t say no, and where young girls have to sell themselves in order to survive.

But then, GW Dubya has always polished his plate with a silver spoon, and to him, a test of survival means having to make due with 2-ply Kleenix tissues when you are out of toilet paper.

Anyway, the Human Rights Campaign released its third annual World AIDS Day report card today highlighting yet another year of failed policies to combat the HIV/AIDS global pandemic. The report card, for the last three years, has rated the U.S. Congress’ and the Bush administration’s response to the HIV/AIDS crisis in four key areas: prevention, care and treatment, research and global AIDS. This year, in honor of the 25th anniversary of the first reported case of AIDS, the report card includes a new category evaluating our nation’s leaders on efforts to combat AIDS-related discrimination.

The 2006 report card is as follows:

Prevention: F

The Bush administration and the Republican congressional leadership continued to pursue policies that undermine effective prevention strategies on HIV/AIDS. The only federal funding stream for sex education in our schools remains limited to unproven and medically inaccurate abstinence-only-until-marriage programs that fail to teach youth how to protect themselves from HIV. This year, congressional leaders jettisoned language unanimously passed by the Senate mandating that these programs be medically accurate.

Furthermore, the Bush administration added additional restrictions to these federally funded abstinence-only programs mandating that “the term ‘marriage’ must be defined as ‘only a legal union between one man and one woman as a husband and wife,’ and the word ’spouse’ refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.” This new anti-gay restriction illustrates that these programs are not driven by public health concerns, but rather by narrow right-wing ideology.

Care and Treatment: D

Years of inadequate funding levels for the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act turned this year’s reauthorization of this crucial program into a zero-sum game pitting states with newer and emerging HIV/AIDS epidemics against those that have been the traditional epicenters of the disease. States with newer and emerging epidemics have traditionally been short-changed by the Ryan White CARE Act and are in desperate need of more funding to provide life-saving treatment and care. However, since Congress has effectively flat-funded the program for six years, new formulas that would give these states critically needed funds would inevitably result in deep and possibly destabilizing cuts for the communities with the plurality of current cases. The Ryan White CARE Act, the payer of last resort, is a crucial part of our nation’s response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and it is extremely disappointing that the program’s reauthorization deteriorated into a formula fight, pitting low-income Americans with HIV/AIDS against each other depending on where they live.

Research: F

Last December, Congress approved a Labor-Health and Human Services appropriations bill that gave less than a 1 percent funding increase to the National Institute of Health, the smallest percentage increase since 1970. In February of this year, the president released his fiscal year 2007 budget which proposed flat-funding NIH, specifically cutting $15 million for AIDS research. Meanwhile, Congress plans on passing a continuing resolution instead of passing a Labor-HHS appropriations bill for fiscal year 2007, which means cuts for NIH. Furthermore, the House of Representatives passed a bill to reauthorize NIH that capped funding increases at 5 percent each year, which is barely enough to keep up with the inflation index for biomedical research and development.

As people living with HIV/AIDS around the world hope for the development of microbicides and other crucial preventative and treatment options – and one day a cure – cuts to AIDS research and to NIH mean that new funding for this crucial research will be extremely limited.

Global AIDS: C

The Bush administration and Congress have made significant steps in raising awareness and dedicating funding to fight the global AIDS pandemic. Unfortunately, many of these important initiatives have come with ideological strings attached.

In April, the U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report reviewing the expenditure of HIV prevention funds through the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief. Current law mandates that 33 percent of PEPFAR prevention funds must be dedicated to abstinence-until-marriage programs. The GAO found that the abstinence-only restriction hindered the ability of HIV/AIDS organizations respond to local prevention needs. The earmark forced many programs to cut spending for mother-to-child transmission prevention, contributed to a lack of understanding of cultural norms and reduced the ability to appropriately target vulnerable populations. Instead of outsourcing our failed prevention policies overseas, U.S. global AIDS policy should allow local organizations flexibility to provide the most effective HIV prevention possible.

Ending AIDS-Related Stigma/Discrimination: F

The 2006 UNAIDS Report on the Global Epidemic asserts that understanding that homophobia is one of the key “drivers of the epidemic” is “absolutely fundamental to the long-term response to AIDS.” According to these experts, ending the AIDS pandemic “will depend largely on changing the social norms, attitudes and behaviors that contribute to its expansion” through the enactment of “laws and policies that directly challenge gender inequality and bias against … men who have sex with men.” This year, we add a new category to HRC’s World AIDS Day report card dedicated to evaluating the government’s performance in this realm.

In June of this year, on the 25th anniversary of the day that the first AIDS case was reported by the Centers for Disease Control, President Bush held a press conference to call on Congress to pass an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would permanently ban same-sex couples from enjoying equal rights and protections of marriage. The president, surrounded by some of the most virulent anti-gay and homophobic voices in the nation, told the amendment’s proponents, “I’m proud to stand with you.”

And last spring, Congress stripped out of a child safety bill a provision passed by the House of Representatives by a wide, bipartisan margin to give law enforcement tools to confront hate violence against GLBT Americans, calling it “a poison pill.” When our nation’s leaders use same-sex couples as political scare tactics and deny law enforcement resources to confront violence driven by anti-gay violence, it is clear that they do not understand the implications that fueling homophobia has on creating a culture that is up to the task of ending HIV/AIDS.

Now, isn’t this something that the United States should be proud of? Healthcare workers, where are all of you? What do you think of this?

Yes, don’t tell me. The blog has been neglected. But I feel like a chicken with two heads, having gotten myself enmeshed in several projects with not enough time to really get everything done. And the blog, sadly, falls to the bottom of the heap.

But anyway, this is International AIDS Day. I don’t know that having a day supposedly devoted to AIDS recognition really does anything. People make speeches and promises, point fingers and furrow their brow, and then back to business. Especially people like George Bush, who think that AIDS can be stopped by withholding condoms and preaching the fury of the Lord.

For Whom the Bell Tolls:
A World AIDS Day Call to Action on HIV Prevention
Church Bell Tolls Every 5 Seconds as Religious and Secular Organizations Call on U.S. Government to Live Up to World AIDS Day Theme “Accountability”

Washington, D.C. —Heading to work this morning on 16th Street, Washington, DC, pedestrians and participants heard the church bell at Foundry United Methodist Church tolling every five seconds. December 1st is World AIDS Day, and globally, on average, every five seconds someone is infected with HIV or dies of AIDS. On the steps of the church, faith-based and secular advocates called for changes in U.S. global HIV prevention policies, which are currently undermining effective prevention strategies among those most vulnerable populations.

“We know now that the populations suffering the highest rate of new infections are youth ages 15-24 and young married women,” Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations President William Sinkford said. “We mock their sufferings when we offer international AIDS relief with strings attached, such as the ‘abstinence-until-marriage’ conditions on sexuality education and disease prevention funding.”

Lesley Barned, a member of the International Youth Leadership Council at Advocates for Youth, another coordinating organization, said, “We’ve waited twenty-five years for governments to fund effective prevention for this disease – and they haven’t. They haven’t even come close. What they have done is far too little and it’s way too late.”

Twelve national religious and secular organizations, including Barned’s and Sinkford’s, came together to plan the Washington, D.C., For Whom the Bell Tolls event. Similar events were undertaken in California, Connecticut, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Missouri, North Dakota, and Washington state as well as in India and Nigeria. These events called for the passage of the Protection Against Transmission of HIV for Women and Youth (PATHWAY) Act.

“The PATHWAY Act would repeal the ideological abstinence-until-marriage earmark and address vulnerabilities of women and girls to HIV,” explained Phyllis Snyder, President of the National Council of Jewish Women. “We believe that the PATHWAY Act is critical to responsible and effective international HIV prevention policies.”

The PATHWAY Act was introduced in Congress on June 22 by Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Congressman Chris Shays (R-CT) along with 56 other original co-sponsors. The bill now has 85 Congressional co-sponsors and has been endorsed by 75 national, state, and local organizations.

“The theme of this World AIDS Day is Accountability. We are coming together on December 1st to hold the U.S. accountable for its HIV prevention policies,” stated Jodi Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE) who also helped organize the World AIDS Day event. “The U.S. will not meet its goal of preventing seven million HIV infections by 2008 in 15 focus countries if it continues to pursue ideological interventions rather than evidence-based, scientifically-proven prevention.”

Participants at the event carried signs reading, “1 Bell Toll = 1 HIV/AIDS Infection or Death” and “No More Abstinence-Only Programs” and “Prevention Based on Evidence Not Ideology.” Many event passersby were surprised to learn how often new HIV infections occur and the lack of effective U.S. policy to address this epidemic

Sinkford concluded his remarks at the event by calling for the bell’s toll to be a resonating reminder for people that inaction and bad policies have real victims. He said, “Our policies must reflect the realities of people’s lives. We know that ‘Just Say No’ didn’t work in the Garden of Eden, and it isn’t stopping the spread of HIV today either in the US or abroad. As we listen to the tolling of the bells, let us hear this call.”

For more information and photos of For Whom the Bell Tolls (including copies of Sinkford’s, Barned’s, and other speakers’ remarks) visit www.pepfarwatch.org/dcevent.