As this is not a candidate diary, I'm sure it will go largely unnoticed. However, let it be known that if you do continue to read this, in the two minutes that it takes you, an estimated 10 people will die from AIDS. I promise I'll keep it short and to the point.
Tomorrow, as the title suggests, is the 25th anniversary of the discovery of AIDS. Originally labeled a "gay disease", it was ignored by the Reagan administration and research went largely unfunded. Health leaders at the time claimed that we would have a cure by 1987. Unfortunately, everybody was wrong. AIDS was not a "gay disease" and 25 years later we still have no cure. Today we have over 25 million people living with AIDS around the world, and millions others have already perished. People with the disease live in every corner of the world; they are young, old, black, white, rich, poor, smart, and yes, even beautiful. Today is a day for remembering those who have already lost their battle with the disease. But it is also a time to recognize our mistakes in the last 25 years, and to look to the future for how best we can treat those who suffer from it and prevent those who don't from ever getting it.
According to the AP:
On May 20 1983, in a paper published in the US journal Science, a team from France's Pasteur Institute, led by Luc Montagnier, described a suspect virus found in a patient who had died of AIDS. Montagnier's groundbreaking work led to the determination by US researcher Robert Gallo that the virus was indeed the cause of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS).
And today - just 25 short years later - we find ourselves with the following horrific figures (according to the World Health Organization):
- More than 25 million people have died of AIDS since 1981.
- Africa has 12 million AIDS orphans.
- At the end of 2007, women accounted for 50% of all adults living with HIV worldwide, and for 61% in sub-Saharan Africa.
- Young people (under 25 years old) account for half of all new HIV infections worldwide.
- In developing and transitional countries, 7.1 million people are in immediate need of life-saving AIDS drugs; of these, only 2.015 million (28%) are receiving the drugs.
We all know, however, that the human cost of AIDS is much, much worse than these statistics. AIDS means a mother can't work to feed her children. It means that a sister has no brother to protect her from neighborhood thugs. It means that a family, a community, and a culture is torn apart. AIDS means that teachers can't teach and students can't learn. AIDS means that the road out of poverty is slow, albeit impossible. AIDS is a societal transformation and so much more.
And to make things worse, we haven't done our part to solve this crisis. I'll let the numbers speak for themselves:
In 2008, President Bush requested 25.4 billion dollars for HIV/AIDS funding (and this was seen as being an incredibly nice request).
In 2008, President Bush requested 145 billion dollars for war funding.
So with that I'm left here sitting, shaking my head, and wondering what it will take for the American people to change our priorities. Obviously a 5% AIDS rate in Washington, DC, has not been enough of a wake-up call. I hope - for the sake of our children - we are not waiting for this epidemic to reach suburban heterosexual white men before we really begin to tackle it. 25 years from today, will we still be talking about AIDS in terms of statistics or will it be in terms of the past? This is our choice and I hope we decide here and now to make AIDS history.