Help Wanted: Prevention Leadership

AIDS Action this week sought coast-to-coast help in the fight for reinvigorated HIV prevention. In letters to President Clinton and four Hollywood AIDS leaders -- Sharon Stone, Tom Hanks, Madonna and Lauryn Hill -- AIDS Action executive director Daniel Zingale tried to enlist support for a new era of prevention in a new era of AIDS.

Clinton's Opportunity

On January 6, AIDS Action sent a letter to President Clinton urging him to fill the final piece of his Administration's battle plan in the war on AIDS by improving prevention spending in his upcoming fiscal year 2000 budget proposal. AIDS Action praised the President for his outstanding leadership in AIDS research, care and treatment but raised concerns about the Administration's neglect of improved HIV prevention. For the past several years, federal prevention spending has been flat and no bold new prevention initiatives have been proposed by the White House or Congress.

"While our investment in AIDS care and research is paying off through lower death rates, our divestment from HIV prevention is creating a new epidemic," AIDS Action Executive Director Daniel Zingale said in a Kaiser Family Foundation HIV/AIDS Daily Report story on the Clinton letter (1/8/98). Action from President Clinton could help slow this new epidemic of HIV, which includes 20,000 newly infected young people every year.

Hollywood Help

Two days after sending the letter to the President, AIDS Action wrote to the four celebrity AIDS leaders urging them to focus a new Hollywood AIDS effort on reinvigorated prevention. AIDS Action was responding to reports of an upcoming Esquire magazine cover story focusing on Hollywood complacency around AIDS. In letters to Stone, Hanks, Madonna and Hill, AIDS Action's Zingale urged them to focus new initiatives on prevention.

"The best way to reverse (stagnant prevention) is through leadership -- the kind of leadership you continue to provide," Zingale wrote. "Indeed, real celebrity leadership in the fight against AIDS means more than simply wearing a red ribbon when collecting an award. Real leadership means dedication, courage and commitment."

Noting the epicenter of AIDS complacency is lax prevention, AIDS Action urged the celebrities to use its ten-point Virtual Vaccine prevention proposal as the basis for a prevention initiative. For more information about the Virtual Vaccine go to www.aidsaction.org/vvhome.html.

The Speaker's Score on AIDS

New House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) was sworn in this week with a promise for bi-partisanship and a mandate for bridging the ideological gap within the Republican Party. Despite his poor record on AIDS issues in the 105th Congress, AIDS Action is hopeful Speaker Hastert will heed the voice of a significant group of Republicans who support fair and sound AIDS policy such as Reps. John Porter (IL), Connie Morella (MD), Christopher Shays (CT) and Mark Foley (FL).

According to AIDS Action's Guide to the 105th Congress, Hastert scored a 16% rating on AIDS votes and co-sponsored Rep. Tom Coburn's (R-OK) draconian HIV "Prevention" Act of 1997 which, among other things, would establish new bureaucracies to collect the names of all Americans with HIV.

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