From left, Sen. Hillary Clinton, Sen. Joe Biden, N.M. Gov. Bill Richardson, former N.C. Sen. John Edwards, Sen. Barack Obama, Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel, Sen. Christopher Dodd
Politics
By Sharon Egiebor
Democratic presidential candidates are aware of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in African Americans, but none of them are offering a comprehensive strategy to reduce the problem, HIV/AIDS activist say. During a June 28 debate on the Howard University campus, the eight candidates provided general comments on how the disease is disproportionately affecting black Americans, who are 12 percent of the U.S. population, but more than 50 percent of those newly diagnosed with HIV or AIDS. “I was happy that there were some answers,” said http://www.balmingilead.org/special_feature/pernessa/essence_35.asp>Pernessa Seele, executive director of the Balm In Gilead. “ The candidates were not totally ignorant of movement like Vice President Dick Cheney and Sen. John Edwards were during the 2004 campaign. I don’t’ recall hearing a clear plan. Just like the Iraq War, HIV/AIDS is a war in our community. We need a plan from our government on how they are going to fight this war right here in our community.” The debate leading up to the 2008 election discussed African American issues and was moderated by Tavis Smiley's, a PBS talk show host. National Public Radio reporter Michel Martin asked, what is the plan to stop and to protect young people from the scourge of HIV/AIDS. African Americans teens are 17 percent of all American teenagers, they are 69 percent of the population of teenagers diagnosed most with HIV-AIDS. Quinton Harper, a senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said Delaware Sen. Joe Biden and Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinick responded best. ”Sen. Biden talked about sexual education for youth,” said Harper, a journalism major. “Those are the answers I would have loved to heard more of, particularly with President [George W.] Bush’s abstinence-only education, which we have seen to be ineffective. Teenagers are having sex, but they are not aware of the consequences of those adult decisions.” Grazell Howard, vice president of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, said she was hoping to hear more specifics on HIV/AIDS in African American women. “The responses for black woman and HIV/AIDS ran the gamut from declared Sen. Hillary Clinton’sprovocative and explosive answer to Illinois Sen. Barack Obama’s middle-of-road. In an ideal world, the candidates would have articulated an outline or a frame of a plan. We still have a lot of work to do in educating our national leaders on HIV/AIDS and black women in specific. Now that issue has been placed on a national agenda, we must be vigilant in keeping it at the top of the individual platform of the candidates.” Clinton said the HIV/AIDS situation would be different if it affected white women. “If HIV-AIDS were the leading cause of death of white women between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-four, there would be an outraged outcry in this country.” Jose Nanin, director of education and training for the Center for HIV Educational Studies and Training (CHEST) at Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY), criticized Clinton’s reference to AIDS as a gay disease in the 1990s. “Hillary Clinton was trying to make a good point but it obviously did not come out of her mouth correctly. The fact is that HIV/AIDS was never a ‘gay’ disease, even in the early days of the epidemic. But that's how it was treated due to the prejudice of so many in our country!,” Nanin said. “HIV infection was and continues to be primarily an infection resulting from ‘behaviors’ that facilitate its' transmission, namely unprotected anal and vaginal sex and the sharing of contaminated needles. Anyone who still attributes HIV infection to specific groups of people [instead of behaviors] needs to be re-educated. I applaud her for ‘trying’ to make a poi
Morris Price, national program officer for the Gill Foundation in Denver, Colo., said he appreciated Clinton’s comments .
“I think Hillary knocked it out of the ball park. She said exactly what most African Americans involved in the fight against HIV/AIDS have been singing and saying for years. If this disease was impacting the majority community, the way it is impacting African Americans, it would be a number one priority at all levels. I applaud her for saying it. If elected, I’d like to see her move it to that level. If not, I hope the other candidates remember the response from the crowd that night.” Edwards , who in 2004 failed to answer a similar question and spoke instead about HIV/AIDS in Africa, offered a three-point plan. “First, we need to fully fund finding a cure for AIDS so we can end this scourge once and for all. Second, we need to fully fund the legislation, the law known as Ryan White, to make sure that the treatment is available for anybody who's diagnosed with AIDS,” said Edwards. “Then finally, we need to ensure that Medicaid covers AIDS drugs and AIDS treatment to make sure that people get the treatment they need, particularly low-income families who are diagnosed with AIDS.” Phill Wilson, executive director of the Black AIDS Institute, a national black policy think tank based in Los Angeles, said before the debate, HIV/AIDS was mentioned only on one candidate’s web site. “AIDS is a large enough issue in Black America that it is shameful that it took a question to get the candidates to speak to this issue. Now the question is what are they going to do beyond the sound bite?” Wilson said. “Black America wants to see their plan to end the AIDS epidemic in our communities. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Failure to end the AIDS epidemic in our communities is not an option for Black America. Anyone who wants Black folks to pay their rent at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. had better have a plan to end AIDS in Black America.” During the debate, Biden inadvertently set off a series of laughs as he encouraged African American men to take an HIV test, like and he Obama has done. Obama asked for a minute to clarify Biden’s statement. “I just got to make clear, I got tested with Michelle, when we were in Kenya in Africa. I don't want any confusion here about what's going on," said Obama. "I was tested with my wife, in public." Wilson said despite the laughter, Biden’s public testing of HIV makes a point. “It is extremely important for leaders regardless of race, or gender to stand with Black America in our efforts to end the AIDS epidemic,” he said. “ Presumably Senator Biden and the others are running for President of the United States, not President of the White United States or President of the HIV negative United States or President of the not at risk [who ever they are] United States. Leadership is Leadership. The story of AIDS in America is a story of failed leadership. It's time our leaders and our wannabe leaders lead.” The debate was the first time that HIV AIDS was addressed by the presidential candidates during a nationally, televised event. Wilson said there are plans to ask similar questions during the next Republican presidential debate. [Email This Article To a Friend] 1. Delaware Sen. Joe Biden 2. N. Y. Sen.Hillary Clinton 3. Sen. John Edwards, former North Carolina Senator 4. Conn. Sen. Chris Dodd 5. Former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel 6. Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich 7 ll. Sen. Barack Obama 8. N.M. Gov. Bill Richardson [Email This Article To a Friend] Michel Martin: I'm sure you'll agree there are a lot of beautiful young people out here in the audience today and are very pleased to be here and conversing, so you can imagine how disturbed we were to find out from the Centers for Disease Control that African Americans are seventeen percent of all American teenagers, they are sixty-nine percent of the population of teenagers diagnosed most with HIV-AIDS. Governor and candidates, what is the plan to stop and to protect these young people from this scourge? Bill Richardson: It is a moral imperative that America have a policy to fight this dreaded disease, both nationally and internationally. You got to make some tough choices. First, we have to use needles. We have to be sure that we have efforts in the African American community, in minority communities, to have comprehensive education. In addition, we have to deal with Africa. Close to twenty percent of the African people have some kind of HIV virus. …I believe it's important that not only we deal with this issue in this country, bringing condoms, finding ways to increase needles, penetrating minority outreach in communities. John Edwards: African American women are twenty-five times as likely to be infected with AIDS today in America than white women. Over half of the new diagnoses of AIDS in America are African Americans. So this is obviously having a disproportionate effect on people of color and on the African American community. … Here are the three things I think we need to do. First, we need to fully fund finding a cure for AIDS so we can end this scourge once and for all. Second, we need to fully fund the legislation, the law known as Ryan White, to make sure that the treatment is available for anybody who's diagnosed with AIDS. Then finally, we need to ensure that Medicaid covers AIDS drugs and AIDS treatment to make sure that people get the treatment they need, particularly low-income families who are diagnosed with AIDS.” Barack Obama: I would add the issue of prevention involves education and one of the things that we've got to overcome is a stigma that still exists in our communities. We don't talk about this. We don't talk about in the schools. Sometimes we don't talk about it in the churches. It has been an aspect of sometimes a homophobia, that we don't address this issue as clearly as it needs to be. I also think there's a broader issue here. This is going to be true on all the issues we talk about. … The problems of poverty, like of health care, like of educational opportunity, are all interconnected. To some degree, the African American community is weakened. It has a disease to its immune system. When we are impoverished, when people don't have jobs, they are more likely to be afflicted not just with AIDS, but with substance abuse problems, with guns in the streets.” Dennis Kucinich: When you think about the statistics that have been cited here, you realize that it's time to get real about health care and education in America. We need to understand that the ability of our public schools to be able to communicate sex education as a priority at the early age helps children understand the consequences of their actions. But there's another dimension here too. That is we have a nation of such wealth, yet we have forty-six million Americans without any health insurance. Another fifty million under-insured. It's time for us to make every American know that they should have access. It is a basic right in a Democratic society. We should be able to fund all those diseases where people are suffering and they need care, but we have to end that for-profit medicine. It is time to take the for-profit insurance companies out of the business. Christopher Dodd: I'd add another addition and that is the need for far broader usage of school-based clinics in our society where children have the opportunity to be able to confront and talk with people that may be willing to give them the kind of sound advice they need on sexual education and the like…. There's a job obviously for government here in funding and support, but I believe that each and every citizen bears a responsibility to reach out and do what they can to educate a child. Our churches are doing this in many ways. We need to do a better job in our schools, inviting parents and insisting there be more participation in our school systems. It isn't just HIV-AIDS. The minority community, the African American community in our country, suffers from a lack of access to a wide variety of health care needs. Infant mortality among the Black community is two and a half times what it is in the white community. The problems of cardiovascular diseases, obesity, diabetes, you go down the long list. It isn't just AIDS. It's a wide range of these issues. We need to begin to address this issue by understanding that it isn't just universal coverage, but access to that coverage and to understand there's a variety of issues that need to be addressed in addition to HIV-AIDS, but each and every one of us as citizens can make a difference. Hillary Clinton: If HIV-AIDS were the leading cause of death of white women between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-four, there would be an outraged outcry in this country. . I'm working to get Medicaid to cover treatment. I'm working to raise the budget for Ryan White which the Bush administration has kept flat, disgracefully so, because there are a lot of women particularly who are becoming infected in poor rural areas as well as under-served urban areas in states where frankly their state governments won't give them medical care. So this is a multiple dimension problem. But if we don't begin to take it seriously and address it the way we did back in the 90s when it was primarily a gay men's disease, we will never get the services and the public education that we need. Joe Biden: You said how do we prevent the seventeen-year-olds from getting HIV-AIDS? How do you prevent that? All the things that were said here are good ideas. They don't prevent that. What's happened is there's a policy of neglect, denial and lack of honesty out there. The fact of the matter is, as Hillary points out, there's neglect on the part of the medical and the white community focusing on educating the minority community out there. I spent last summer going through the Black sections of my town holding rallies in parks, trying to get Black men to understand that it's not unmanly to wear a condom, getting women to understand they can say no, getting people in the position where testing matters. I got tested for AIDS. I know Barack got tested for AIDS. There's no shame in being tested for AIDS. It's an important thing because the fact of the matter is, in the communities engaged in denial, no one wants to talk about it in the community and we do not have enough leaders in the community and outside the community demanding we face the reality, confront the men in the community as well as the women, letting them know there are alternatives.