Op-Ed
By Phill Wilson
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the presumed new speaker of the House, says voters sent a clear, simple message on Election Day: “It’s time for a new direction.” That was the Democratic leader’s own message all year on the campaign stump, and it’s her promise now, as her party regains control of Congress for the first time in 12 years. The Black AIDS Institute couldn’t agree more. And we desperately hope the Democrats are serious about charting that new course, because Washington has allowed the AIDS epidemic in Black America to run amok for far too long. Congress has failed to do the hard work of reforming the 16-year-old CARE Act to keep up with an ever-changing epidemic. The law was due for congressional reauthorization in 2005, but the pols have yet to act on that mandate. Lawmakers – including Democrats -- have been too busy bickering over how best to divide up inadequate funding among the varied cities and states to see the bigger picture: There’s not enough money in the program. Given the disproportionate impact the AIDS epidemic is having on Black America, Congress’s decision to break without reauthorizing the Ryan White Care—one of the primary resources for care and treatment of poor people living with HIV/AIDS—was a direct assault on the health and welfare of Black America. While the Administration and Congress fiddled, the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) has collapsed. ADAP subsidizes lifesaving anti-HIV drugs for about 30 percent of those getting treated in the U.S. Just recently week, AIDS advocates in South Carolina announced that three people have died while languishing on the state’s 300-person waiting list for AIDS treatment. As of the last reporting period, there were waiting lists in six states—a number that will most certainly grow if Congress does not set a new direction in the fight against HIV/AIDS quickly. Funding for the Ryan White CARE Act has remained all but flat during the last three Congresses. Meanwhile, the U.S. government estimates an additional 200,000 Americans have contracted HIV since 2001. According to the Congressional Budget Office, as of January 2006 we were spending $200 million a day on the war in Iraq. According the coalition of local officials and advocates that has monitored the program since its inception, with the equivalent of what we spend in Iraq in one day, we could fully fund the AIDS Drug Assistance Program. But, the AIDS Drug Assistance Program is not the only part of our national response to the domestic AIDS epidemic that is failing. Local health departments and clinics around the country, particularly in the South, report having to cut or limit services they offer in order to meet growing demands with limited resources. Addiction treatment, support groups, transportation assistance – all have had to fall by the wayside in some places. The Centers for Disease Control’s prevention efforts are being starved by lack of resources. Who suffers? African Americans represent nearly 50 percent of the estimated 1.2 million Americans living with AIDS today and 54 percent of the new cases in our country. When care and treatment services are cut, Black people don’t have access to treatment. When HIV prevention efforts are undermined, Black people get infected with HIV. If Pelosi is good for her word, she’ll indeed steer a dramatically new direction on AIDS. She can start by demanding that the House pass a budget that adequately funds comprehensive prevention efforts, and puts enough funding into the CARE Act to keep Americans living with HIV/AIDS alive no matter what state they live in.