[Ip-health] CBC letter on AIDS, Doha
Asia Russell
asia@critpath.org
Thu, 19 Dec 2002 16:56:31 -0500
This letter was sent by CBC members to Pres. Bush. The point of the letter
is AIDS, and the President's trip to Africa. It doesn't have perfect
language on disease scope, but note that the letter advises Bush to oppose
any efforts to limit the scope of the Doha Declaration.
For an administration that is bending over backwards not to seem racist in
the ongoing fallout from the Trent Lott debacle, efforts by the
Administration to decry racism even while its trade negotiators are seeking
dramatic and dangerous limitations the ways in which countries in Africa and
elsewhere could benefit from a paragraph 6 solution are hypocritical at
best.
Asia Russell
-------------------
December 18, 2002
President George W. Bush
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500
Dear President Bush,
As members of the Congressional Black Caucus, we are writing to draw your
attention to the growing spread of HIV/AIDS throughout the developing world.
It would be impossible to overstate the devastation caused to date by the
global AIDS pandemic, or the urgency of the need for a greater response from
the United States and the global community. With 42 million people
currently living with HIV/AIDS - 29.4 million of them in Sub-Saharan Africa
-- 14 million children already orphaned by the disease, and 70 million more
people expected to die by 2020, we must do more now. We must respond on an
appropriate scale to address the greatest plague in recorded history.
The United States, as the world's wealthiest nation, must take greater
action by contributing its fair share, and in doing so we can help galvanize
the global response that we so desperately need. As you prepare to travel
to Africa in January, and as you prepare your budget for fiscal year 2004,
you have a remarkable opportunity to demonstrate United States leadership
against AIDS at a moment when the world will be watching. We urge you to
launch a major new US initiative to fight AIDS, as well as tuberculosis and
malaria. TB is the leading killer of people with HIV, claiming 2 million
lives each year despite the existence of an effective and inexpensive cure,
while malaria kills nearly one million people each year, most of them young
children in Africa.
An expanded US Initiative to fight AIDS must:
* Provide at least $2.5 billion for implementation of global AIDS
programs in 2004, as well as additional funds to combat TB and malaria. At
least 50% of this should go to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and
Malaria.
* Prioritize treatment, as well as prevention and care, for those
affected--including an expanded mother-to-child transmission initiative that
would detect and treat entire families, and including funding and personnel
as needed to implement the WHO call to treat three million people with HIV
by 2005.
* Promote developing country access to sustainable supplies of affordable
medicines for AIDS and other diseases such as opportunistic infections in
accordance with the Doha Ministerial Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and
Public Health and oppose any attempts to limit the scope of the Declaration.
* Expand programs for children orphaned by AIDS.
* Seek debt cancellation for impoverished countries, so they can invest
in poverty reduction and AIDS programs.
Most importantly, a US initiative should consist of new monies and policies
that complement existing US-supported programs and are additional to the
Millennium Challenge Account (MCA). The MCA, however, also must help meet
the Millennium Development Goal of halting and reversing the spread of these
diseases.
We cannot win the war against AIDS without greater financial resources and a
clear plan of action for the United States. Programs around the world are
ready to scale up prevention, treatment, and care to save lives now, and to
develop the systems needed to save tens of millions more in the future.
Each day we delay in mounting a comprehensive - and compassionate - response
to the global AIDS and TB pandemics, the cost in human, social, and economic
terms grows. You will have our strong support and the support of the
American people for a bold new initiative to save families and communities
affected by the AIDS crisis, to extend the parent-child relationship, and to
secure the future of young people.
Sincerely,
______________________________ ______________________________
Barbara Lee, M.C. Maxine Waters, M.C.
______________________________ ______________________________
Donna Christian-Christensen, M.C. Danny K. Davis, M.C.
______________________________ ______________________________
Edolphus Towns, M.C. Robert Scott, M.C.
______________________________ ______________________________
Charles Rangel, M.C. Elijah Cummings, M.C.
______________________________ ______________________________
Julia Carson, M.C. William "Lacy" Clay, Jr., M.C.
______________________________ ______________________________
Juanita Millender-McDonald, M.C. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, M.C.
______________________________ ______________________________
Eddie Bernice Johnson, M.C. Sheila Jackson-Lee, M.C.
_______________________________ ______________________________
Bobby Rush, M.C. Eleanor Holmes Norton, M.C.
_______________________________ ______________________________
Carolyn Kilpatrick, M.C. Donald Payne, M.C.
_______________________________ ______________________________
Diane E. Watson, M.C. Sanford Bishop, M.C.
_______________________________ ______________________________
Gregory Meeks, M.C. Bennie Thompson, M.C.
_______________________________ ______________________________
Major Owens, M.C. Melvin Watt, M.C.
_______________________________ ______________________________
Harold Ford, Jr., M.C. Corrine Brown, M.C.
_______________________________ ______________________________
John Conyers, M.C. Chaka Fattah, M.C.
_______________________________ ______________________________
Alcee Hastings, M.C. Jesse Jackson, Jr., M.C.
--
Asia Russell
ACT UP Philadelphia
Health GAP
asia@critpath.org
1 215 474 9329 office
1 267 475 2645 mobile