HIV/AIDS News: The First Ten Years

JMG reader Dave Evans has compiled the below hour-long clip of news reports from the first ten years of HIV/AIDS. Noted figures that appear: Ryan White, Lyndon La Rouche, Larry Kramer, Ronald Reagan,  Magic Johnson, and Cleve Jones.

Obama To End ADAP Waiting Lists

Fantastic news even if its release is shrewdly timed to arrive a few days before the International AIDS Conference. Via White House press release:

Today, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced nearly $80 million in grants to increase access to HIV/AIDS care across the United States. The funding will ensure that low-income people living with HIV/AIDS continue to have access to life-saving health care and medications. “The entire Administration is dedicated to fulfilling President Obama’s goal of an AIDS free generation and today’s announcement is one more step in that ongoing effort,” Secretary Sebelius said. “These grants will help make a real difference in the lives of Americans living with HIV/AIDS, especially those in underserved communities.”

Approximately $69 million will be sent to 25 states and territories through the Ryan White AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP), and based on estimates provided by the states, will eliminate any waiting lists. The more than $10 million remaining will be distributed to Ryan White community-based health clinics nationwide to expand access to 14,000 new patients for essential medical and support services for people living with HIV/AIDS. A portion of this funding was made available through the Affordable Care Act.

Elton John Writes Letter To Ryan White On 20th Anniversary Of His Death

On the 20th anniversary of Ryan White's death from AIDS, Elton John has written Ryan a letter. From the Washington Post, an excerpt:

Ryan, I wish you could know how much the world has changed since 1990, and how much you changed it. Young boys and girls with HIV attend school and take medicine that allows them to lead normal lives. Children in America are seldom born with the virus, and they no longer contract it through transfusions. The insults and injustices you suffered are not tolerated by society.

Most important, Ryan, you inspired awareness, which helped lead to lifesaving treatments. In 1990, four months after you died, Congress passed the Ryan White Care Act, which now provides more than $2 billion each year for AIDS medicine and treatment for half a million Americans. Today, countless people with HIV live long, productive lives. It breaks my heart that you are not one of them. You were 18 when you died, and you would be 38 this year, if only the current treatments existed when you were sick. I think about this every day, because America needs your message of compassion as never before.

After the deaths of Ryan White and his good friend Freddy Mercury, in 1992 Elton founded the Atlanta-based Elton John AIDS Foundation, which has since raised hundreds of millions of dollars for HIV/AIDS research. This Wednesday the foundation will host an event in Ryan White's honor in Indianapolis.

Utah Senate Delays Ryan White Act: "Doesn't Obamacare Pay For This?"

Yesterday the Utah Senate delayed approval of a long-running federal grant providing assistance to people with HIV, the Ryan White Act. Utah Senate president Michael Waddoups said coldly, "Doesn't Obamacare pay for this?"

The grant program is named after Ryan White, a teenage hemophiliac who died from AIDS complications in the 1980s after contracting the HIV virus during a transfusion to treat the blood disorder. "Doesn't Obamacare pay for this?" asked Waddoups, referring to the new health insurance reform package passed by Democrats in Congress and signed two weeks ago by President Barack Obama without a single Republican vote.Waddoups said he would not vote for the grant, which has never been questioned in previous years, until all his questions were answered. Waddoups noted that voicing his concerns should not be read as intending harm or preventing necessary medications from being delivered to Utahns who receive them under the grant. The earliest the grant will be considered is at the committee's next scheduled meeting in May. State Department of Health administrators did their best to answer the questions, noting that they had received no prior notice that lawmakers would be asking questions about that grant or any others on the list. The inaction puts the health department, already pinched by two years of budget cutbacks, in the position of finding the $420,000 from other areas in agency programs to cover the cost of providing the services through April.

Last month, the largely Republican Utah legislature resolved to put roadblocks into any implementation of the health care reform bill. By coincidence, today is the 20th anniversary of the death of Ryan White.

Obama Signs Ryan White HIV/AIDS Act And Lifts HIV Travel Ban

This is from the official White House YouTube channel. Watch this anyway.

Ryan White's Mom Angry With Huckabee

The Human Rights Campaign is trying to engineer a meeting between Mike Huckabee and Jeanne White-Ginder, mother of Ryan White, the Indiana teenager whose battle with AIDS in the 80's riveted the nation and made Ryan a darling of AIDS activists such as Elton John.

White-Ginder says Huckabee's recent comments about AIDS have infuriated her and that "We have to treat this disease like a disease, and like Ryan always said, not like a dirty word." When her son contracted HIV through his treatment for hemophilia in 1984, he was barred from public school, becoming the country's best-known example of discrimination against people with AIDS. After Ryan White's death, the largest federally funded program for people with AIDS was named for him.

While I understand why the HRC is using the example of Ryan White to respond to Huckabee, White is also one of the sainted, media-proof, "innocent victims" of AIDS. Gay organizations invoking the image of a straight teenager to protest AIDS discrimination has always stuck in my craw.

UPDATE: Huckabee has responded to the HRC's letter. Regarding the White family: "I certainly never would want to say anything that would be hurtful to them or anyone else. I would have great regret and anxiety if I thought my comments were hurtful or in any way added to the already incredible pain that families have felt regardless of how they contracted AIDS."
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