On Aug. 18, the 16th International AIDS Conference came to a close in Toronto, Canada. Over 30,000 scientists, activists and HIV/AIDS agency representatives attended from 132 countries. The conference was organized by the International AIDS Society and local Toronto groups that work on the issue.
AIDS is a devastating disease that has already claimed the lives of 25 million people since the disease was first
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At the conference, different priorities were discussed, including the amount of funding put toward finding a vaccine. The U.S. government pulled funding from vaccine research several years ago when initial trials failed, taking the unscientific stance that more needs to be known before funding such research. Most vaccines, such as the polio vaccine, were developed when very little was known about the functioning of the immune system.
Discussions also took place about the development of a microbicidal gel that could prevent infection. This approach is being promoted. It would provide women greater opportunity to protect themselves in societies where women have little control over their own bodies. Previous research on the microbicide nonoxynol-9 proved to be ineffective in preventing HIV transmission. There are several other microbicides being tested. As HIV exposure intersects with cultural, behavioral and sexual norms, women’s oppression is central to the increased number of women becoming infected worldwide.
More critical than the direction of HIV/AIDS research is the barrier of private ownership of pharmaceuticals and healthcare services based in the imperialist countries. Private ownership leaves all but 2 million infected people without access to current anti-retroviral therapy. These therapies were developed 10 years ago.
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS faces a $500 million shortfall this year, even with a pledge in that amount from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, headed by Microsoft owner Bill Gates. Gates, the richest man in the world, has accumulated his massive personal wealth off the backs of technological workers and from the protection of bourgeois intellectual property laws. The sum of Gates’s corporate gift falls very short of the need to win the battle against AIDS.
Protesters demand AIDS treatment access
On Aug. 13, more than 1,000 conference participants representing countries all over the world marched through the streets of Toronto demanding universal access to HIV/AIDS treatments. If treatments were readily available, HIV/AIDS would become a more manageable chronic illness, rather than a disease that kills thousands each day in Africa and other parts of the world. In many countries, access to HIV/AIDS treatments is non-existent, a fact that has led to skyrocketing infection rates.
Access to condoms and other preventive devices also is scant. Only 21 percent of infected people worldwide have access to condoms. And 90 percent of intravenous drug users do not have access to free clean needles. Protesters in Toronto noted this reality when they chanted, “Condom, needles, and the rest, we need more than just a test!”
The protest action, billed as the “The AIDS Treatment Now: Time to Deliver” march, delivered the “Toronto Declaration” to Helene Gayle, president of the International AIDS Society and co-chair of the Toronto conference, and Craig McClure, IAS Executive Director. The declaration calls on all conference delegates to commit to its goals, which include a significant increase in funds for HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care.
“No one is asking for any more than was promised. Everything in the battle against AIDS is being jeopardized by the G8,” said Stephen Lewis, the UN special envoy for AIDS in Africa. Lewis’s comment was directed at the world’s wealthiest nations, which failed to live up to funding promises to the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The G8 countries made huge funding promises at their 2005 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland.
The G8, or Group of Eight, is a club that includes the major imperialist nations—the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, France, Germany and Italy—and Russia. These eight countries meet every year behind locked doors to decide economic and military policies that affect billions of people worldwide.
Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, squarely blamed the imperialist-run G8: “With regard to fighting infectious diseases, it’s high time for the G8 to really put its money where its mouth is and ante up more funding. The money spent by these nations on global health is dwarfed by that spent on wars and national security.”
Activists at the conference noted the need for continued struggle. “What we have today is better than what we had before, but we won’t be happy until every single person gets treatment, care and testing,” stated Walt Senterfitt, board chair of Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project. “We’re going to keep fighting until then.”
