HIV/AIDS in the US
Unsound Policy at Home and Abroad
Meanwhile, policies that reflect political ideology rather than the reality of people’s lives have hurt rather than helped in the fight against AIDS, globally and domestically. For example, telling youth to abstain from sex as the sole option for preventing HIV, when most American teenagers are sexually active, ignores the hard facts at the expense of potentially successful HIV prevention programs. Likewise, forcing abstinence-only programs on developing nations devastated by HIV/AIDS undermines their prevention efforts by denying them the opportunity to use every tool available in their prevention toolkits.
GAA United with Domestic AIDS Groups
The need to unite on AIDS issues at both the national and global levels is clear, which is why GAA is taking action in the US as well. For example, GAA is collaborating with domestic organizations to stop cuts to Medicaid, which is a critical program for providing health care to low-income Americans, including an estimated 100,000 people with AIDS. GAA has also worked with organizations to expand access to sterile syringes in the US. In particular, we pushed for the Congressional decision to allow the District of Columbia to fund a needle-exchange program for intravenous drug users.
No National Plan for AIDS
While the UN Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS calls for all countries to develop a national AIDS strategy, the US—whose capital city has a 5% HIV infection rate that rivals that of many developing countries—has no such plan. The Global AIDS Alliance is a proud supporter and signatory of the National AIDS Strategy. The following statistics about domestic HIV/AIDS are sourced from this campaign unless otherwise noted:
Please visit the following sites to find out how to get involved in your own community or learn more about HIV/AIDS in the US:
NationalAIDSStrategy.org
AIDSVote.org
The Balm in Gilead
Campaign to End AIDS
Harm Reduction Coalition
Latino Commission on AIDS
National Minority AIDS Council









