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This blog entry marks the first from GAA's new intern, Tucker Landesman. Tucker is a senior at George Washington University, where he is majoring in international relations with a concentration in global public health. Originally from St. Louis, Tucker is Mid-Atlantic Regional Grassroots Coordinator for the Student Global AIDS Campaign, and will be interning with GAA until May 2008.

Tuesday, January 29, was Sock Day!  A group of dedicated activists form GAA, Student Global AIDS Campaign, ACT UP Philadelphia, Health GAP, Americans for Informed Democracy, and Advocates for Youth gathered on Capitol Hill to call on Congress to fully fund the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and add needed flexibility to the global AIDS legislation, including comprehensive sex education, expanded treatment access, a repeal of the anti-prostitution loyalty pledge, and support for in-country health care workers.

Despite the cold and the rain, grassroots activists from DC, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey came together to deliver hundreds of socks strung on clotheslines and shoved into laundry bags and backpacks to Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Senator Richard Lugar. We urged them not to get "cold feet" when it comes to PEPFAR. 

In his State of the Union address on Monday evening, President Bush announced to Congress and the nation that he is requesting $30 billion to extend PEPFAR for another five years. USA Today has called this a doubling of AIDS funding. But in reality the US is spending $6 billion on AIDS this year, which multiplied over five years totals $30 billion. So the White House proposal really amounts to flat funding the fight against global AIDS.

What does flat funding really mean? It means that the agreed-upon goal of universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, and care is out of reach. It means that millions of people will still not have access to lifesaving drugs that cost pennies to produce. It means that millions more will continue to be infected with HIV each year, because they don't have access to basic prevention information. It means that hospitals and community-based clinics in poor countries will remain under-staffed and ill-equipped to care for people living with HIV/AIDS and other diseases. Flat funding means that the US can't be counted on to keep its promises!  The President and Congress made a commitment to ensure universal access to HIV/AIDS services, and we challenge them to keep that commitment!

Our action on Tuesday was about more than a dollar amount;, because we want to change the way we spend our dollars.  Any responsible fiscal conservative will tell you that money should be spent effectively and efficiently. Well, we want the opportunity to do just that. We want to allocate our resources the best way possible, but we can't do do that if we maintain the status quo of PEPFAR and a narrow "ABC" approach to prevention programming. Abstinence is a great HIV prevention strategy. So is being faithful. No one denies those facts. But an exclusive emphasis on abstinence and fidelity denies essential information to people at risk of HIV infection and undermines efforts to stop the spread of AIDS. The moral agenda of a few US legislators shouldn't be allowed to limit community-based prevention programs. We need comprehensive sex education! We need it because it works! Comprehensive education is the most effective way to combat the epidemic. We know this because we've seen the data. We know this because we've listened to public health and medical experts, not to polarizing and divisive politicians.

Denying prevention educators the ability to go beyond abstinence, beyond faithfulness, and even beyond condoms—the ability to comprehensively educate their communities about how to prevent HIV—makes us complicit in the 2.5 million new infections each year. We say that a segmented, earmarked HIV prevention strategy is second rate and unacceptable. We say this because ten of PEPFAR's focus countries have applied for a waiver that would exempt them from spending one-third of prevention funds on abstinence-only programming. Ten countries out of 15 want to arm their communities with comprehensive tools to protect against HIV because they know that access to information is more than simply the best way to combat the epidemic, it is a basic human right!

Some congressional staffers were relatively receptive to our concerns, reminding us that global AIDS is not a partisan issue and encouraging us to continue the struggle for universal access to prevention, treatment, and care. Unfortunately some members of Congress, despite recognizing that AIDS lies beyond party lines, will continue to weaken the legislation with their personal moral agendas. Our goal as a social movement is to remind our representatives on Capitol Hill that PEPFAR is about one fundamental thing: saving lives. Apparently, that is easy to forget in the crazy political mess that is Congress. That is why we have to keep our representatives in line and hold them accountable! We must call upon our representatives to stand for conscience and scientific evidence. 

Those of us who took part in Tuesday's action, those of us who have had the opportunity to lobby our representatives in Washington or in our home states, can attest that we have social power as students, as public health advocates, and as concerned citizens. We are the grassroots movement, and we do make a difference when we mobilize effectively. That is why we all must rally together iand urge our congressional representatives to support new PEPFAR legislation proposed by Representative Tom Lantos, support effective programming, support people living with HIV/AIDS, and above all, support the human right to access health care and education with dignity and respect.

Click here to read GAA's press release on the Bush funding proposal.