http://www.suntimes.com/output/jesse/cst-edt-jesse02.html
Bush approach to AIDS fight wastes time, money
December 2, 2003
BY JESSE JACKSON
On Dec. 1, parades and quilts, commemorations and prayers across the world marked growing public awareness of the terrible disease of mass destruction -- AIDS, the worst plague mankind has ever known.
This year China joined the global day of concern; South Africa and Brazil announced new plans for free distribution of life-saving drugs. But neither governments nor peoples are keeping pace with the disease.
An estimated 3 million people died of AIDS last year; 5 million more became infected -- both setting grisly new records. An estimated 40 million people live with the disease, and more than half don't even know they have it.
In sub-Saharan Africa, the disease is rampant, but now it is spreading rapidly in China, India, Southeast Asia, Russia and Eastern Europe. More than 28 million have died from it since it was first discovered in the United States in 1981.
The good news is that AIDS can be treated. A cocktail of drugs taken daily can suppress the disease for years; many can live out their natural lives. The bad news is that treatment is costly and generally unavailable across the world. The United Nations estimates that of the 40 million infected, 6 million are in dire need of treatment. Only 480,000 receive it -- most of those in industrial countries.
This year, the U.N. launched a new program to get treatment to 3 million victims by 2005. This will require heroic efforts. Not only must the treatment be simplified, but workers without any medical experience must be trained; clinics must be engaged. And victims who begin treatment must be monitored. If they take the drugs for a while and drop out, experts fear a new drug-resistant strain of the virus will develop and spread.
President Bush announced a major U.S. global AIDS initiative in his State of the Union address last year, pledging to commit $15 billion over five years for countries in Africa and the Caribbean. But he has insisted that the U.S. program operate independently rather than helping to fund the U.N. initiatives that have a proven track record. That has delayed action, as U.S. bureaucrats labor to build a program from the bottom up. And once the applause died down, Bush asked only for $2 billion of the promised annual sum of $3 billion in his budget this year.
Democrats and many Republicans have called for a larger effort. Ironically, it took a general -- Gen. Wesley Clark -- to put forth a truly bold program. Clark would double Bush's commitment and build upon World Health Organization programs rather than spurn them.
He sees this as a centerpiece of what he calls a ''preventive engagement policy'' to make America a source of hope in the world. Perhaps it takes a general, knowing the scope and the limits of our military strength, to deal aggressively with a disease of mass destruction.
AIDS isn't going away; it is getting worse. World AIDS Day cannot come and go, like a holiday celebration. Education, prevention and treatment must be provided every day across the globe. This isn't really a choice. It is a necessity, a matter of life and death.
We know this but somehow do not adjust. The United States will spend $87 billion this year on the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq. And yet we fail to spend even a 30th of that amount on a plague that claims more lives here and abroad each year.
The administration rushes to war on false alarms about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, yet finds it hard to respond to true reports about a disease of mass destruction.
Too bad the virus doesn't wear a uniform or brandish a gun. Then the threat it poses might be able to command proper attention in Washington.
