Town hall addresses global HIV/AIDS pandemic

An overflow crowd of medical professionals and students, human rights activists and leaders of community-based organizations marked World AIDS Day and the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at the Harvard Medical School on Dec. 9 with a town hall meeting titled "HIV/AIDS and the Right to Health: Leadership in the U.S. and Globally."

Calling the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the United Nations on Dec. 10, 1948, "the Magna Carta of universal human rights," moderator Pat Daoust noted that article 25 of the declaration "proclaims the right to the highest attainable standard of living adequate for health and well being.

"Today we are here to celebrate its vision, commit ourselves to its unfulfilled promise and reassert this right," said Daoust, the director of Physicians for Human Rights' Health Action AIDS Campaign. "The AIDS pandemic has demonstrated profoundly the indivisibility of the right to health from other rights that we will also discuss here today."

While the meeting focused on efforts to eradicate HIV/AIDS - what more than one speaker called "the greatest public health crisis of our time" - both in the U.S. and abroad, AIDS Action Committee (AAC) Executive Director Rebecca Haag emphasized the work that must be done to prevent and treat the disease among those living on American soil.

Haag noted that while the Bush Administration has made a strong commitment to ending the international epidemic with the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, better known as PEPFAR, "unfortunately we've neglected the epidemic here at home."

She then ticked off a list of statistics she called "somewhat shocking" considering that the U.S. is the one of the wealthiest and most developed nations in the world. Among them was the fact that though they represent about one in eight Americans, black people account "for one [of] every two people living with HIV in the United States.

"And not withstanding extraordinary improvements in HIV treatment, AIDS remains - and I want to emphasize this - AIDS remains the number one cause of death for black women between 25 and 34 in the United States. And the second leading cause of death in black men between 35 and 44," Haag added. She also noted that in Washington, D.C., the capital of one of the world's wealthiest nations, the prevalence of HIV exceeds that of Port au Prince, the capital of Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

"HIV continues to be the number one health threat to gay men in America," Haag continued. "Almost sixty to seventy percent of people living with HIV are men - primarily men who have sex with men. And yet in this last administration, many of the folks that we've just given you statistics about seem invisible. And why is that? Because HIV and AIDS has many complicated drivers, including homophobia, racism and sexism." She added that violence, poverty and lack of access to healthcare are also drivers of the disease.

In many ways, said Haag, HIV and AIDS is at the vortex of all the major social justice issues that need to be addressed in the U.S. "We have to have real discussions about these issues among communities that don't often sit in a room ... and talk with each other". Haag also advocated more openness among healthcare providers and patients on the subject of sexual behavior. "We have to talk about sex," she said, noting that while society is saturated with sexual imagery, "sometimes when we go into our doctor's office we fail to have that discussion with our healthcare providers. And in many ways our healthcare providers fail to ask the type of questions about our behavior that may be critical to saving our lives.

"So I encourage all of you as you think about your career or career choices," said Haag, "whether it's healthcare or social work or being a medical provider you must find ways to engage in these conversations."

The town meeting was sponsored by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), AAC, Harvard's Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights, and Partners in Health, an international organization dedicated to delivering health care to people burdened jointly by poverty and disease.

Haag was joined at the town meeting, held in an amphitheater at the Joseph B. Martin Conference Center, by fellow panelists PHR CEO Frank Donaghue, the Rev. Gloria White-Hammond of Bethel A.M.E. Church and Dr. Jim Yong Kim, director of Harvard's Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights.

Sen. John Kerry delivered a keynote address to the gathering via video. In his remarks, Kerry talked up his successful collaboration with Oregon Sen. Gordon Smith to repeal the ban on allowing HIV positive visitors and immigrants into the U.S., which passed earlier this year as part of the PEPFAR reauthorization. Repeal the ban, instituted in the early 1990s, has long been a priority of LGBT and HIV/AIDS advocates. "And now Health and Human Services is in the midst of changing the rule to end this ban entirely," Kerry stated. Though there's still some "red tape" to cut through, said Kerry, "I'm excited to report we're very close to making this a more humane and welcoming country in a way that will actually directly impact positively many people's lives."

Sen. Ted Kennedy was honored during the town meeting with PHR's Award for Outstanding Leadership on the Right to Health for his longstanding leadership on improving access to healthcare. Accepting the award on behalf of Kennedy, who was unable to attend the event, was his great-nephew Joseph P. Kennedy III.