Greens Call for Comprehensive U.S. Plan to Fight AIDS
Green Party of the United States
www.gp.org
Released Friday, December 8, 2006
Contacts:
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624, mclarty@greens.org
Starlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, 916-995-3805, starlene@greens.org
An AIDS Cure Project; national health insurance; strong health care work forces for
nations hit hard by AIDS; prevention and treatment policies free of corporate demands and
ideological restraints
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Green Party leaders called for a comprehensive U.S. plan to fight AIDS
nationally and around the world, as the numbers of people living with AIDS rise to 40 million,
with 25 million already dead.
Greens listed several urgent steps, calling them the necessary basis for national AIDS policy:
The U.S. must initiate a comprehensive project to find a cure for AIDS.
"To cure AIDS, we need a focused effort that gathers the best minds and gives them the best
resources, comparable to the Manhattan Project and the space program. We'll cure AIDS when we
give it the same national priority the U.S. gave to defeating Japan and placing a man on the
moon," said Tim Casebolt, secretary of the Lavender Green Caucus, which
represents the party's lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer membership.
Further information: ACT UP AIDS Cure Project Papers,
http://www.actupny.org/ACP/ACP.html
Only a single-payer national health insurance program can meet the health care demands of the
AIDS crisis in the U.S.; the Green Party places national health insurance at the top of its list
of priorities.
"We need a national health insurance program to guarantee that AIDS medicines and treatment get
to everyone who needs them," said Starlene Rankin, Lavender Green Caucus delegate to the
Green Party's National Committee. "The U.S. may have some of the best medical treatment and
technology in the world, but we trail other industrial nations in medical access. Over
45 million Americans lack health insurance; millions more are undercovered. The prevalence of AIDS
and other diseases among poor and low income Americans who lack coverage, especially among
people of color, makes it urgent that we guarantee quality health care and AIDS treatment
on demand to every American, regardless of prior medical condition, income, or age. Furthermore,
a national health insurance plan will give the U.S. government a greater stake in AIDS
prevention."
Further information: Physicians for a National Health Program, http://www.pnhp.org
The U.S. must give AIDS treatment and prevention international priority over corporate
profits, intellectual property rights (patents for medicine and genetic information), and
privatization of services and resources (e.g., health coverage and treatment; access to clean
water), and must help address the critical shortage of health care workers and weak health
systems in countries hit hard by the AIDS crisis.
"In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Clinton and Bush administrations sought economic
sanctions against nations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America that tried to make low cost and
generic AIDS drugs available," said Aimee Smith, co-chair of the Green Party's Peace Action
Committee. "The U.S. must ensure that human needs, including the need to prevent and treat
AIDS, are more important than corporate power and profit. President Bush has sent more U.S.
financial aid to AIDS-affected countries than any president before him. For such funding to be
effective, it must be free of the demands of corporations, ideological restraints, and
bureaucratic red tape, and we must guarantee that a strong health care work force can put the
money to work in countries currently without adequate health care."
Further information: Health GAP (Global Access Project), http://www.healthgap.org/index.html
Greens also call for an end to ideologically based AIDS prevention schemes that have been
proven ineffective, such as abstinence-only education and denial of AIDS prevention
assistance to nations that fund family-planning programs that allow abortion and contraception.
"We know what works: needle exchange; AIDS prevention education that acknowledges realities
like pre-marital sex and same-sex behavior; programs that help give women power to make their
own choices. The Green Party supports these strategies, just as we support full gay rights
and equality and uncompromised women's reproductive rights in the U.S. and
throughout the world," said Alison Duncan, 2006 Green candidate for Lieutenant Governor of New York.
MORE INFORMATION
Green Party of the United States
http://www.gp.org
1711 18th Street NW
Washington, DC 20009.
202-319-7191, 866-41GREEN
Fax 202-319-7193
Green Party national platform: section on AIDS/HIV
http://www.gp.org/platform/2004/socjustice.html#1004542
Lavender Green Caucus
http://www.lavendergreens.us