November 24, 2003



On Monday November 24th, one week before World AIDS day, an overwhelmingly black and brown throng of 800 people – representing those infected and affected by HIV and AIDS, and AIDS service and advocacy groups -- gathered in Washington DC to send a direct message to President Bush. They marched to make it clear that they will hold Bush accountable for rolling back effective and necessary HIV/AIDS programs, research and prevention in the U.S. and abroad. As uninsured people wait for months to get access to ever more expensive life-saving brand name drugs, effective programs are being targeted and audited for serving GLBT people, and the only programs that have received funding increases under the Bush administration have been unproven, misleading "abstinence-only" HIV prevention programs which forbid educators from providing facts about condom use.

Baltimore treatment and recovery centers sent 5 buses full of people to Washington for the march. As we waited for the bus, we met Inez ,who showed us photos of her family, including a relative who had died from an AIDS related illness. She saw a flier about the march at the South Baltimore Family Health Center, where we met our bus, and decided to come add her voice to the protest. Tirease West, from the "I Can't, We Can" recovery program, took the day off to go, "to stand with the people in our families and society that have AIDS." We arrived in McPherson Square at noon, joining with people from New York, Philadelphia and DC behind a huge banner proclaiming, "Voters Want AIDS Action, Not Weapons of Mass Deception." After the rally, we marched behind a huge President Pinocchio effigy, pointing to huge contradictions between the Bush administration's pledges to fight AIDS effectively in the U.S. and abroad, and it's actual policies. A very popular chant through out the day was, "Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire."





"Bush promised funds for prevention and education. Promoting abstinence only is unrealistic," said Immy Ferrera, of "A Mother's Pledge" in Philadelphia. Ferrera talked about losing her son Phillip to AIDS in 1994, and her dedication to fighting AIDS. She said that Bush's funding cuts are causing waiting lists and delays of months and months for people without insurance to get life saving drugs under the AIDS Drug Assistance Program. At the rally, Asia Russell from the Health GAP (Global Action Project), stated," Unlike the politicians and ideologues we know condoms work, and comprehensive sexuality education helps save lives."

Elizabeth, a member of AIDS service organization "Congreso Latinos Unidos" in Philadelphia came to fight for more money for education and prevention. "Young people need to know about HIV and AIDS. It feels really great to be here. I am HIV+ and I do education in the Latino community about how you can get this disease... We go to high schools and pass out flyers to get young people to come to our programs."

Pills cost pennies. Greed costs lives.
On the way to the White House, we stopped in front of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Angeli, a medical student and global AIDS activist from Newark, spoke about her experiences treating uninsured people with HIV or AIDS. "The fact that there are 43 million people in the U.S. without health insurance is a civil rights issue," she claimed. Expressing the international scope of the protest, she affirmed that, "Whether in Newark or Nigeria, it's the same problem."

"I'm here to tell Bush that his policies are bullshit," said Jen, of the American Medical Students Association, a group with 40,000 members. She continued, "Bush needs to actually make a real plan on AIDS, the crisis of our time, fight global AIDS, and stop attaching strings to prevention policies." Jen noted the Bush Administration's close ties to the pharmaceutical industry, leading U.S. policies to support the interests of this powerful pharmaceutical lobby. For example, Bush named Randall Tobias, CEO of the Eli Lilly & Company as the Coordinator of the new AIDS initiative announced earlier this year. Tobias has no prior experience in public health, and clearly represents the interests of the pharmaceutical industry, which has continually lobbied to deny Africans access to essential drugs.

“Medication for Every Nation”
Chanting “medication for every nation”, protestors demanded that Bush follow through with funding promises for the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM), a U.N. multilateral effort that is already operational and effective, and needs the U.S.'s share of the funding in order to continue. Instead of supporting the Global Fund, Bush promoted a new Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (EPAR), a U.S. Government bureaucracy that would compete with the Fund and would not be up and running until 2005. Amidst widespread media coverage during his July 2003 visit to Africa, Bush said that the U.S. was committed to leading the fight against AIDS. However Bush didn't request any funds for the EPAR for 2003, instead actually intervening in the budget process that same month to urge Congress not to spend the $3 billion under consideration.

Amanda of the African Services Committee in NY critiqued Bush's global AIDS policies: "over 60% of these monies go to abstinence only programs in Africa. Abstinence is not a reality in Africa... and the irony is, we live in a country preaching abstinence to Africa, when the number one selling drug in this country is Viagra..." She advocated for greater U.S. funding of the GFATM and proclaimed, "We are up against the greatest threats to global security that this world has ever seen -- HIV/AIDS and George Bush -- and they must both be stopped." The U.S. has consistently blocked efforts to relax patent rules and facilitate African countries' access to anti-AIDS drugs and other essential medicines.

"Free Trade" Kills. No New Patent Rules in Bush's FTAA

Closely tied to the pharmaceutical lobby, are the intellectual property rights (IPR) provisions being imposed under the FTAA, that favor patent monopolies by the big pharmaceutical companies, and seriously threaten access to affordable medicines in Latin America and the Caribbean. The FTAA IPR language would undermine even the WTO's November 2001 Doha Declaration which supports WTO Member's rights to put public health before IPRs, and permits exceptions to patent monopolies to create generic competition and decrease the cost of medicines.

ACT UP, FIGHT BACK, FIGHTS AIDS!

At the march, the Coalition released a "Year in Review: the AIDS Crisis and the Bush Administration," for 2003 (www.aidsinfonyc.org/yearinreview.html), illustrating the gap between "compassionate" rhetoric and the cruel realities of Bush Administration policies on HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care in the U.S. and around the globe. The document includes a budget analysis of actual spending vs. White House announcements in Bush's domestic and global AIDS programs, and assessment of White House Administration obstruction of effective science-based HIV prevention, and new evidence of pharmaceutical industry collusion with US trade negotiators to obstruct low-cost generic medicines access in heavily impacted countries. The Coalition's platform called "AIDS Vote 2004" is also at this website.

On the bus-ride back home, we spoke with Jerome, from a recovery house in Baltimore about his impressions of the march. "I felt as though it was important that I do something so that young kids know, to be aware of the disease... I'm in recovery right now. I don't only have one disease, I have 2: addiction and HIV. It's very important for me to give back something to my nephews and nieces that is positive... and this was a way of taking one step forward. The march was very important. I felt a part of, instead of feeling out.”

The significance of the organizing done for this march must be emphasized. The participants were overwhelmingly African American and Latino, working class, many in recovery. Through education programs like Project Teach which was pioneered in Philadelphia, and through relationships in the recovery community as well as teach-ins, Act-Up Philadelphia and their allies have been able to organize people previously uninvolved in global issues by linking the global issues directly to the domestic struggles of people in poor communities of color in the US. They have important lessons to teach our global activist community.

As we marched, a chant that started as "Fight AIDS, Stop Bush," morphed into, "Fight AIDS, Fight Bush," and finally a loud and raucous, "Fight AIDS, Fuck Bush." The spirit of the march was uplifting, knowing that despite the current policies and the difficult struggle that lies ahead, there are people and groups coming together who will continue to fight. Jose, from Congreso Latinos Unidos, said that his group is committed to continue to fight for more funding for medication, housing and health: "we'll keep fighting every year, every month, every day."