[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 104 (Friday, July 26, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7424-S7425]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TAKING OUR STAND AGAINST HIV/AIDS
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I spent the first 20 years of my career
studying and working in medicine. I graduated from medical school in
1978. After that, I trained as a surgical resident for eight years. I
then worked as a heart and lung transplant surgeon until I was elected
to the United States Senate in 1994. During that time, HIV/AIDS went
from a disease without a name to a global pandemic claiming nearly 20
million people infected.
It's hard to imagine an organism that cannot survive outside the
human body can take such an immense toll on human life. But HIV/AIDS
has done just that--already killing thirteen million people. Today more
than 40 million people--including three million children--are infected
with HIV/AIDS. HIV/AIDS is a plague of biblical proportions.
And it has only begun to wreak its destruction upon humanity. Though
one person dies from AIDS every ten seconds, two people are infected
with HIV in that same period of time. If we continue to fight HIV/AIDS
in the future as we have in the past, it will kill 68 million people in
the 45 most affected countries between 2000 and 2020. We are losing the
battle against this disease
There is neither a cure nor a vaccine for HIV/AIDS. But we do have
reliable and inexpensive means to test for it. Also, because we know
how the disease is spread, we know how to prevent it from being spread.
We even have treatments that can suppress the virus to almost
undetectable levels and significantly reduce the risk of mothers
infected with HIV/AIDS from passing the disease to their children.
We have many tools at our disposal to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS.
But are we using those tools as effectively as possible? The gloomy
statistics prove overwhelming that we are not. What we must do is focus
on what is truly needed and what is proven to work and marshal
resources towards those solutions. We have beaten deadly diseases on a
global scale before; we can win the battle against HIV/AIDS too.
More than 70 percent of people infected with HIV/AIDS worldwide live
in Sub-Saharan Africa. But the devastation of the disease--and its
potential to devastate in the future--is by no means limited to Africa.
HIV/AIDS is global and lapping against the shores of even the most
advanced and developed nations in the world.
Asia and the Pacific are home to 6.6 million people infected with
HIV/AIDS--including 1 million of the five million people infected last
year. Infections are rising sharply--especially among the young and
injecting drug users--in Russia and other Eastern European countries.
And the Americas are not immune. Six percent of adults in Haiti and
four percent of adults in the Bahamas are infected with HIV/AIDS.
I believe the United States must lead the global community in the
battle against HIV/AIDS. As Sir Elton John said in testimony before a
committee on which I serve in the United States Senate, ``What America
has done for its people has made America strong. What America has done
for others has made America great.'' Perhaps in no better way can the
United States show its greatness in the 21st century--and show its true
selflessness to other nations--than leading a victorious effort to halt
the spread of HIV/AIDS.
But solving a global problem requires global leadership.
International organizations, national governments, faith-based
organizations and the private sector must coordinate with each other
and work together toward common goals. And, most importantly, we must
make communities the focus of our efforts. Though global leadership
must come from places like Washington, New York and Brussels, resources
must be directed to where they are needed the most--to the men and
women in the villages and clinics and schools fighting HIV/AIDS on the
front lines.
Adequate funding is and will remain crucial to winning the battle
against HIV/AIDS. But just as crucial as the amount of funding is how
it is spent. Should we spend on programs that prevent or lower the rate
of infection? Should we spend on treatments that may prolong the life
of those who are already infected? Should we spend on the research and
development of a vaccine? The answer is yes . . . to all three
questions.
We can only win the battle against HIV/AIDS with a balanced approach
of prevention, care and treatment, and the research and development of
an effective vaccine. HIV/AIDS has already infected tens of millions of
people and will infect tens of millions more. We need to support proven
strategies that will slow the spread of the virus and offer those
already infected with the opportunity to live as normal lives as
possible. And if our goal is to eradicate HIV/AIDS--and I believe that
is an eminently achievable goal--then we must develop a highly
effective vaccine.
But even with proven education programs or free access to anti-
retroviral drugs or a vaccine that is 80 to 90 percent effective, our
ability to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS and treat those already infected
would be hampered. The infrastructure to battle HIV/AIDS in the most
affected areas is limited at best. We need to train healthcare workers,
help build adequate health facilities, and distribute basic lab and
computer equipment to make significant
[[Page S7425]]
and sustainable progress over the long-term.
To win the battle against HIV/AIDS, we must not only fight the
disease itself, but also underlying conditions that contribute to its
spread--poverty, starvation, civil unrest, limited access to
healthcare, meager education systems and reemerging infectious
diseases. Stronger societies, stronger economies and stronger
democracies will facilitate a stronger response to HIV/AIDS and ensure
a higher quality of life in the nations most affected by and most
vulnerable to the disease and its continued spread.
And we can make significant progress without vast sums of money and
burgeoning new programs. Take, for example, providing something as
basic and essential as access to clean water. 300 million or 45 percent
of people in Sub-Saharan Africa don't have access to clean water. And
those who are fortunate enough to have access sometimes spend hours
walking to and from a well or spring.
It costs only $1,000 to build a ``spring box'' that provides access
to natural springs and protects against animal waste run-off and other
elements that may cause or spread disease. 85 percent of the 10 million
people who live in Uganda don't have access to a nearby supply of clean
water. It would cost only $25 million to build enough ``spring boxes''
to provide most of the people living in rural Uganda with nearby access
to clean water.
Providing access to clean water is just one of the many ways in which
the global community can empower the people most affected by and most
vulnerable to HIV/AIDS. In some cases, such efforts--like supporting
democracy and encouraging free markets--may cost little or take a long
time, but they will make a significant difference in the battle against
HIV/AIDS and the quality of life of billions of people throughout the
world.
We have defeated infectious diseases before--sometimes on an even
larger scale. Smallpox, for example, killed 300 million people in the
20th century. And as late as the 1950's, it afflicted up to 50 million
people per year. But by 1979 smallpox was officially eradicated thanks
to an aggressive and concerted global effort.
What if we had not launched that effort in 1967? What if we had
waited another 35 years? Smallpox likely would have infected 350
million and killed 40 million more people. That is a hefty price for
inaction--a price that we should be grateful we did not pay then, and
we should not want to pay now.
Right now we are losing the battle against HIV/AIDS. But that doesn't
mean we can't win it in the end. Indeed, I believe we will ultimately
eradicate HIV/AIDS. We have the tools to slow the spread of the disease
and provide treatment to those already infected. And we have the
scientific knowledge to develop an effective vaccine. But we need to
focus our resources on what is truly needed and what is proven to work.
And we need global leadership to meet a global challenge.
In 2020, when it is estimated that more than 85 million people will
have died from HIV/AIDS, how will we look back upon this day? Will we
have proven the experts right with inaction? Or will we have proven
them wrong with initiative? I hope that we will be able to say that in
the year 2002 we took our stand against HIV/AIDS and began to turn back
what could have been, but never became the most deadly disease in the
history of the world.
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