Credit: Michael Davidson for Hillary for America
August 4, 2016
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This week, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton released
a new HIV/AIDS policy plan. As has been the case with her campaign in
general, reactions have run the gamut from full-throated support to
begrudging acceptance, with most HIV/AIDS activists who spoke on the
matter falling somewhere in the middle.
The most distinctive new pledge is to create an "End the Epidemic" working group within the Office of National HIV/AIDS Policy in the White House. Other new language includes a specific focus on the need for regional responses to the epidemic; a specific call to fight for the broadly supported, longstanding Ryan White Care Act; and specific pledges to partner with advocacy groups and community organizations for HIV education and to collaborate with The Global Fund on HIV, TB and Malaria to lessen stigma across the world.
As might be expected, HIV/AIDS activists' responses to the Clinton plan have been shaped in large measure by whether or not they feel their specific theaters in the battle against the epidemic have been given the proper attention.
The Ad Hoc National Coalition to End the AIDS Epidemic -- a group of around 70 HIV/AIDS advocates and service providers who met with the Clinton and Sanders campaigns to seek the candidates' commitments to fighting the virus -- put out a press release with a tone of cautious optimism, pointing out the concessions it had won from the Clinton campaign and pushing for greater change, particularly in the international arena.
The Coalition notes its success in getting Clinton to agree to the formation of an "End The Epidemic" working group and to scheduling Daniel Driffin as the first HIV-positive speaker at the Democratic National Convention in over a decade.
"I think that it's pretty good overall," Kathie Hiers told TheBody.com. Hiers, the CEO of AIDS Alabama and a member of the coalition, says she fought hard to have the struggles of Southern states reflected in Clinton's policy plan. "I agree with [HIV/AIDS activist] Peter Staley in that I wish we could get some concrete numbers from them but, on the plus side, she clearly listened to us and changed her policy accordingly. I'm really just especially glad that she listened to us about the South and the commitment we need to end epidemic."
Hilary McQuie, the director of U.S. policy and grassroots mobilization at the internationally focused group Health GAP, was significantly less enthusiastic.
"'Underwhelmed' is an excellent summary of my feelings," McQuie told TheBody.com when asked about Clinton's policy plan. "We're just coming off the International AIDS Conference where the message was it's time to sound the alarm and that funding levels are decreasing ... and now we're at the point where we need OMB [the U.S. Office of Management and Budget] to put forward their budget and their inclination is to keep things lower. We're looking at flat funding for 2017 and probably 2018. It just slows everything down another year."
Whether HIV/AIDS activists find themselves enamored with or disappointed by Clinton's HIV/AIDS presidential policy plan, the reality is that it's the only one out there right now from a presidential candidate. Donald Trump has yet to put forward anything approaching a policy plan concerning HIV/AIDS. Advocates have noted that his running mate, Mike Pence, may have contributed to one of the more staggering HIV/AIDS outbreaks in recent memory with his defunding of Planned Parenthood as Indiana Governor. As for the two surging third party candidates, Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson and Green nominee Jill Stein, neither has anything on their campaign sites about HIV/AIDS.
Editor's note: JD Davids, managing editor of TheBody.com, serves as an individual member of the Ad Hoc National Coalition to End the AIDS Epidemic.
Drew Gibson is a social worker and freelance writer based out of Cincinnati, Ohio. You can follow him on Twitter at @SuppressThis or visit his blog "Virally Suppressed," which covers a multitude of issues related to public health and social justice.
Copyright © 2016 Remedy Health Media, LLC. All rights reserved.
Read more articles about HIV/AIDS here: The Body
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