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After 30 Years of AIDS, Treatment Gap Still Feeds the Epidemic August 20, 2011

Posted by rogerhollander in Health, Race.
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Roger’s note: when I make the point that virtually all social evils, from poverty to war to homelessness, etc., can be traced to capitalist economic relations, to put it mildly, I get funny looks.  But I stand by the assertion.  We have the tools to eradicate hunger, to end the AIDS epidemic, to provide clean water and adequate housing to every soul on earth.  I am constantly told the problem is “human nature.”  To that I say, “bullshit!”  The problem is the humongous concentrations of wealth and monopoly of resources that are the consequences of capitalist economic relations; and the problem is getting worse, not better.  It is in the very nature of capitalist economic relations to reproduce, like a cancer, its malignancy.  The rich get rich, the poor get poorer.  The sick get sicker.

Sunday 5 June 2011
by: Julianne Hing, Colorlines                 | News Analysis
 On the cusp of the 30th anniversary of the discovery of AIDS, a new report from UNAIDS says there is reason to be hopeful that the global response to HIV and AIDS is having some positive impact. A record number of people—1.4 million—started treatment for HIV or AIDS in 2010, and the pace of new infections has slowed significantly. Between 2001 and 2009, new HIV infections declined by 25 percent around the world.

But according to the organization, an estimated 34 million people are living with HIV and nearly 30 million have died because of AIDS-related illnesses since the discovery of AIDS on June 5, 1981.

Today, with new advances in research, the most pressing issue for the communities that are seeing the fastest rates of new infection—that is, women and in the U.S., black neighborhoods—is equal access to treatment that can not only slow the rate of the virus’s growth in a person’s body but the spread of the disease to other people.

As Rod McCullom reported back in May, when the medical world reported the encouraging results of HPTN 052, which confirmed that early treatment could help curb the rate of HIV transmission:

“The prevention toolbox has just exploded,” says Phill Wilson, president and CEO of the Black AIDS Institute. “This study definitively ends the debate of prevention versus treatment. Prevention and treatment are inextricably connected: Treatment is prevention.”

“These data must serve as a clarion call to funders, policy makers, civil society and implementers,” Mitchell Warren, executive director of New York City-based AVAC, formerly known as the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, said in a statement. “If deployed effectively, efficiently and ethically, early initiation of treatment will be fundamental to turning the tide of the epidemic.”

“Access to treatment will transform the AIDS response in the next decade. We must invest in accelerating access and finding new treatment options,” said Michel Sidibé, the executive director of UNAIDS. “Antiretroviral therapy is a bigger game-changer than ever before—it not only stops people from dying, but also prevents transmission of HIV to women, men and children.”

Indeed, as Phil Wilson, the president of the Black AIDS Institute told McCullom: “We have the tools to end the AIDS epidemic.”

“The question is whether we have the political will and compassion to make the investment necessary to use them.”

Julianne Hing is a reporter and blogger for Colorines.com covering immigration, education, criminal justice, and occasionally fashion and pop culture. In 2009 Julianne was the recipient of USC Annenberg’s Institute for Justice and Journalism fellowship, which funded a reporting project on the impacts of criminal deportation on immigrant families. She has covered police brutality issues from Oakland to New Orleans and in the summer of 2010 reported for Colorlines from the courtroom where Oscar Grant’s killer, BART cop Johannes Mehserle, faced trial. Julianne became politically active in high school, and started organizing students in college around access and affordability issues. She earned her B.A. in social ecology at the University of California, Irvine, where she edited Jaded magazine, named 2007 Publication of the Year by Campus Progress. Julianne’s writing has appeared on AlterNet, Truthout, Hyphen Magazine’s blog, The American Prospect’s blog TAPPED and Ta-Nehisi Coates’ blog at The Atlantic, Racialicious, The Root and New America Media.

Julianne tweets at @juliannehing.