Talking About AIDS

A Great American War on Disease

A New Imperative for Medical Research

• America achieved world dominance in the 20th century through a determined and unwavering national commitment to fighting and defeating the forces that threatened peace, democracy and human rights in America and throughout the world.

• While the 20th century was about protecting the American people from enemies abroad, the 21st century must also be about protecting the American people from enemies from inner-space -- the deadliest viruses, bacteria and invaders of the human cell.

• Last year, 2,000,000 Americans died from deadly diseases, more than all the wars in our nation's history. Today, cancer, heart disease, diabetes and AIDS may be the greatest threat to the health and well-being of the American people and the world.

• This is a war we are already beginning to win. Breakthroughs in heart disease, diabetes and cancer all provide hope that we will one day defeat these deadly diseases.
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• A visionary nation -- Republicans and Democrats -- came together during the last 15 years to overcome fear and ignorance by declaring war on AIDS and investing in research, care and treatment and, as a result, today we have the first life-prolonging AIDS drugs.

• The AIDS epidemic is spreading so fast in Africa that it threatens to bring down entire nations.

An International Holocaust

-- Tony Braswell, AID Atlanta

"I think there's a lot of research being done and I think that they already have developed . . . some drugs that will keep (HIV disease) where it's at . . . Like if you're HIV positive, you may not develop AIDS if you have the money to spend on drugs."

-- White college-educated woman, Atlanta

• AIDS is the world's deadliest infectious disease with about 2.28 million deaths worldwide in 1998. Nearly 95% of all people infected with HIV live in developing countries. In the year 2000, 40 million people worldwide will be infected with HIV.

• With staggering infection rates internationally, AIDS is a disease that threatens to bring down entire nations. Early in the 21st century, one in four adults will have contracted HIV in numerous African countries.

• Just as we have made a commitment internationally to fight evil regimes in Europe and elsewhere, we should make the same commitment to fight an evil virus that threatens the people of Africa and other developing regions of the world.

• While AIDS drugs have cut the death rate in much of the developed world, their high cost makes them unavailable to most developing nations, where the vast majority of men, women and children with HIV live.

• We need better prevention efforts and an intense search for a vaccine if we want to begin to stem the tide against HIV internationally.

• According to Peter D. Hart Research Associates, a majority of Americans (54%) support increased United States assistance to help fight AIDS in Africa, including an overwhelming majority of African-Americans (83%).

Americans Strongly Support International AIDS Effort