[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 72 (Thursday, June 8, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H3627-H3628]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         EVOLUTION OF HIV/AIDS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, this week we recognize that 25 years ago in 
San Francisco doctors saw a disease that did not yet have a name with 
symptoms that hearkened back to the Middle Ages. Some manifestations of 
the disease were lesions, pneumonia, infections. Within 5 years, we 
were losing so many, many friends to AIDS that we would often go to two 
funerals in one day. A whole generation of young people went to more 
funerals than birthdays. We had too many friends who we held in our 
arms at the end of their lives that felt like a bag of bones more than 
the muscular young people they had been. There was so much, first of 
all, a lack of information and then fear of what became known as HIV/
AIDS.
  Nineteen years ago, it was this week I came to Congress to be sworn 
in. And my first sentence was, I am here from San Francisco and I have 
come to fight against AIDS. Actually, what I said is, Sala Burton sent 
me here to fight against AIDS. She was my predecessor. People asked me, 
why would you say that? You don't want to be labeled that way. That is 
the way AIDS was viewed at the time. But that was why I came here, and 
I said that from day one.
  Because San Francisco had suffered the most, we now had an 
opportunity

[[Page H3628]]

to be a model for America and eventually the world, a model for 
leadership, for community-based solutions, and for intervention. We got 
to work right away, working with many of my colleagues, Congressman 
Waxman in the lead on our Banking Committee; Congressmen McDermott, 
Schumer and Frank working on our Housing Opportunities With People With 
Aids; Congresswoman, now Senator, Boxer, again, working with 
Congressman Waxman creating the Ryan White CARE Act to provide health 
care and support services for people with HIV and AIDS.
  Just as this was all going on, at the very beginning of my tenure in 
Congress, I measure things that way, a gentleman named Cleve Jones from 
San Francisco came to me and said we want to have a press conference at 
your home to announce something called the Names Project. What that 
would be is that people would make a patch for a giant quilt in honor 
of a friend, a family member, a loved one who had died of AIDS.
  I, being the mother of five and taught to sew in my Catholic school 
upbringing, said, Sew? Nobody's going to sew. Nobody sews anymore. I 
have four daughters and one son. I don't sew and I know how to sew. But 
I was wrong and he was right. And what started that day as us taking a 
few stitches with then-mayor of San Francisco Art Agnos and Cleve Jones 
turned into this giant Names Project that has been displayed on the 
Mall here in Washington. It is indeed a wonder of the world.
  Sadly, though, as the quilt grew, so did the recognition of the many 
lives that were taken or lost from HIV and AIDS.

                              {time}  2215

  Next in San Francisco, we created the AIDS Memorial Grove and then 
designated a national memorial to the thousands of Americans who have 
died of AIDS. It was really a remarkable thing in our city of San 
Francisco. Although the numbers were staggering, every diagnosis was an 
individual one and a personal one, and we had to measure the success of 
what we were doing as to what it meant to the lives of each person 
infected with HIV or to the next stage of AIDS.
  We recognized that if we were going to have an appropriate response 
to AIDS, that it had to be international, and thus was started by Paul 
Boneberg, a person in San Francisco, The International Mobilization 
Against AIDS. This was many years ago.
  Fast forward to now. This year, we have an essential responsibility 
to continue these efforts by reauthorizing the Ryan White Care Act and 
then supporting what works by making serious investments in it.
  Twenty-five years ago when we heard about the symptoms that would 
become known as AIDS, and 19 years ago when I first came to Congress, I 
never thought that we would be standing here today without a cure. Five 
years from now, on the 30th anniversary, I pray that we can say that 
AIDS is a terrible, terrible memory; that we have prevented deaths, 
ended the epidemic, and found a cure. This is especially true not only 
in our country but throughout the world where many children are 
affected by the deaths of their parents, being orphaned, and by their 
own infections as well.
  With a group of my colleagues, I visited South Africa and other 
countries in Africa, but particularly in South Africa we visited the 
AIDS clinic and saw the important work that was being done there on 
that continent. It is taking a terrible toll in terms of lives and 
hopes and dreams and aspirations. I hope that we will soon be able to 
say that AIDS taught us how to love each other more but that we will 
never see it again.
  Again, I call to the attention of my colleagues the 25th anniversary 
of the first diagnosis of AIDS, and hope that a cure will be right 
around the corner.

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