From: bigoldberg@igc.apc.org (Billi Goldberg)
Newsgroups: sci.med.aids
Subject: Sentinel Article 11/5/92
Date: 6 Nov 92 04:56:26 GMT
Organization: unspecified
Note: Copyright 1992, Dan R. Greening. Non-commercial reproduction allowed.
Archive-Number: 6419

The following article appeared printed in the San Francisco Sentinel,  
on Thursday, November 5, 1992.

It is being posted here with the permission of the author Charles 
Caulfield.  
************************************************************************
                  Now America Can Respond to AIDS

                   by Charles R. Caulfield

 After 12 years of Republican domination of the White House, people 
living with AIDS related illness can now breathe a sigh of relief with 
the election of the Clinton-Gore ticket. Having been elected on a 
platform that promises the new dawn of America's response to AIDS, 
here's what we can look forward to if the new President keeps his word.

1. Implementation of the recommendations of the National Commission on 
AIDS.

   This will include the formulation of a national policy on AIDS 
prevention and treatment with significant input from all involved 
federal agencies and relevant national organizations and will identify  
priorities and the resources needed to do this. This must begin with a 
sane, unbiased evaluation of what is needed, which is not clouded by 
prejudicial biases on sexuality, drug use or other matters frequently 
viewed as moral issues. Other recommendations include full funding for 
the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act, the 
implementation of a Nationalized Health Care Plan, greater inclusion of 
under-represented minorities in research protocol access, and the 
removal of all legislative barriers for the purchase of injection 
materials. The Commission also stipulated the need for substance abuse 
treatment on demand for all Americans requiring it, and the removal of 
all barriers to government funding of certain kinds of HIV education, 
services, and research.

2. The appointment of a National Commissioner on AIDS, or AIDS "Czar."

   In a summary of the recommendation of the Treatment Activist Group, 
presented at the VIII International Conference on AIDS, it was stated, 
"The NIH Associate Director for AIDS Research should be given authority 
to allocate resources and programs across institute barriers." At 
present, six separate NIH Institutes conduct AIDS Clinical trials, and 
have not been required to collaborate in any sensible way. This 
appointment will greatly contribute to a gleaning of more medical 
information from each dollar spent. It is hoped by activists that this 
appointment will go to a person who is gay/lesbian, and who is a 
physician in clinical practice in AIDS treatment. This will insure the 
appointment of someone who is in touch with the frustrations our 
community has experienced by governmental blockages to treatment access, 
FDA lethargy and departmental territoriality. He/she must develop and 
implement priorities for treatment research which take into 
consideration the broad spectrum of needs encountered by those living 
with this disease.

3.  Universal Access to health care by all citizens, without regard to 
their ability to pay for it.

    This will provide medical care for all Americans, including ongoing 
primary care, prescription drugs and frequent diagnostic monitoring, as 
well as mental health and social services. Currently, people with AIDS 
related conditions who receive Social Security Disability must wait two 
years before they are eligible for Medicare. Those who receive benefits 
exceeding $725 per month in California ($375 per month in some less 
progressive states) must endure this two years without the benefit of 
Medicaid health coverage. This has been one of the greatest disasters of 
the AIDS epidemic. By ensuring that many of these individuals are forced 
to accept suboptimal care for two years, and therefore die before they 
can qualify, the government has been able to avoid the cost of providing 
Medicare services to literally scores of thousands of PWAs over the last 
eleven years. Swift action by Clinton on this promise will eliminate 
this gross inequality in access to medical care for people living with 
HIV.

   Belinda Mason, who was a person with AIDS and a member of the 
National AIDS Commission died last year. Before she died she offered a 
plea for compassion in the report of the Commission, in which she 
stated, "I have to say that people living with AIDS and HIV want nothing 
more or nothing less than all of you take for granted today-a place to 
live, the right to have a job, decent medical care, and to live our 
lives out without unreasonable barriers. We're not asking for extras, 
only to be included in what America already delivers to her privileged 
people."

   We have a long way to go before we can realize her dream. But after 
12 years of a presidency which chose to do nothing, to seldom even utter 
the word AIDS publicly for fear of the political consequences, the 
political consequences have now become painfully apparent. We have 
nowhere to look but up from where we have come: 150,000 dead and 
possibly two million infected in this country alone. With the losses the 
gay community has endured during the last eleven years, we cannot afford 
to allow anything other than a steadfast keeping of his promises by the 
new President. Our community's input must and will be sought in his 
achieving of these goals. It's time to get to work. The Reagan-Bush 
years engendered a cannabalistic frenzy by physicians, activists and 
service providers in an attempt to garner the sparse federal dollars 
available to implement their diverse responses to this epidemic. 

   We will never have the chance, which we now have, to unify and move 
in the same direction toward a humane response to this disease whose 
sole intention is the elimination of the human suffering caused by AIDS. 
We must seize this opportunity to press for the appointment of an AIDS 
Czar who is known to be friendly to our agenda, and keep the pressure on 
so that there will be no variance from the course needed to achieve 
them. For the first time ever, the gay and lesbian community has the 
stated good will of the executive branch of the U.S. government. It's 
the opportunity of a lifetime. We must take it, it's now or never.
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