AIDS in 2006 - Moving Toward One World, One Hope?

AIDS IN 2006--MOVING TOWARD ONE WORLD, ONE HOPE? -- (Extensions of Remarks - September 07, 2006)

SPEECH OF
HON. JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY
OF ILLINOIS
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2006

* Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, the International AIDS Society meeting in Toronto last month focused the world's attention on ways to deal with the ongoing AIDS pandemic. Global health experts and advocates came together to discuss effective tactics and comprehensive strategies for improved prevention and therapies and, ultimately, a cure. I am particularly glad that the meeting highlighted the need for microbicides development, treatments that will allow vulnerable women to protect themselves and their families from infection.

* As we consider the recommendations made in Toronto, I want to draw my colleagues' attention to a recent article, ``AIDS in 2006--Moving toward One World, One Hope?,'' published in the August 17 edition of The New England Journal of Medicine. Written by Dr. Paul Farmer and Dr. Jim Yong Kim, leading medical experts with years of front-line experience through their work at Partners in Health, they offer us important lessons that will help translate the optimism expressed in Toronto into the reality of improved global health.

* As they point out, an effective approach to the global AIDS epidemic (and to the global TB and malaria epidemics as well) will require strategies that address the global epidemic of poverty and the inequitable distribution of health care resources. Affordable drugs, viable public health systems, access to trained health care personnel, and the provision of nutrition and other ``wrap-around'' services that make the difference between life and death are all essential components for success. As Partners in Health has proven in Haiti and Rwanda, this comprehensive approach is not a pie-in-the-sky notion. It is completely achievable given a commitment to make and sustain the necessary investments.

* The work of nongovernmental organizations like Partners in Health, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Clinton Foundations HIV/AIDS Initiative has allowed us to make incredible strides, but they cannot solve these problems alone. As Dr. Farmer and Dr. Kim caution us, ``Only the public sector, not nongovernmental organizations, can offer health care as a right.'' The U.S. government can and must take the lead in expanding our commitment to defeating the twin dangers of global pandemics and global poverty. By doing so, we will not only make the world healthier, we will make it safer. [From the New England Journal of Medicine, Aug. 17, 2006]

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