Fitzsimon File

Thursday is World AIDS day, a day set aside to focus attention on the HIV/AIDS epidemic that continues to devastate lives around the world and in North Carolina. There are activities scheduled across the state.

Part of the AIDS Memorial Quilt will be on display at a community center in New Bern to help public education efforts. There is a candlelight walk planned in Cabarrus County Thursday night, where a local HIV/AIDS case manager says advocates want to increase awareness of the disease in the county. 

There will be an AIDS walk in Asheville on Saturday. The story previewing the event reports that there that 387 people in Buncombe County living with HIV/AIDS at the end of 2004. 

Every event is important, every headline about AIDS a small victory, an opportunity for AIDS activists to reach more people with information about how to protect themselves from infection or where to get tested.

Good for the advocates, the organizers, the caseworkers, and other people dedicated to battling the deadly epidemic and to remember the lives the disease has taken.

But we either need to expand the day’s meaning in North Carolina or come up with another day, the Angry About AIDS day and demand that our leaders abandon the combination of callousness, homophobia, and ignorance that stops them from taking simple steps to help people currently infected with HIV and to prevent thousands of others from becoming infected. 

Media reports about World AIDS Day generally leave out the state’s shameful record on AIDS treatment and prevention.  The state has a waiting list for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program that provides lifesaving medication to people who can’t afford them.

The waiting list exists despite the most stringent eligibility criteria in the nation. The state denies help with the drugs that cost more than $13,000 a year to people who earn more than $11,900 a year.

State law forbids needle exchange programs that prevent infection and increase the number of IV drug users in treatment programs. Public health professionals, AIDS activists and many law enforcement officials support needle exchange programs, but the General Assembly refuses to approve legislation making the programs legal.

Studies show that comprehensive sex education is a vital tool in preventing infections, yet some school systems forbid discussions of condoms, preferring instead to preach abstinence and then hope teenagers listen.  AIDS prevention programs are chronically under funded as the infection rate grows, especially in poor African-American communities.

The response from top state leaders has been silence. Governor Easley never mentions AIDS and said in a debate last year that the state could not afford to spend $12 million of a $17 billion budget on expanding the eligibility for AIDS drugs to the level of our bordering states. 

The General Assembly found $1 million for the program this last session, not even enough to keep the waiting list at current levels. That money came over the objection of powerful House budget chair Rep. Ed Nye.

Nye will be in charge of the budget again this summer. Legislation allowing needle exchange programs never received a hearing last session. No new money was appropriated for AIDS prevention efforts.

World AIDS Day ought to be a reminder of more than the toll the disease has taken on the world. It is a reminder that our state leaders either don’t care or aren’t paying attention to the suffering in North Carolina.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 29th, 2005 at 4:28 pm and is filed under Fitzsimon File. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.