Pharma Weblog

To: HEALTH EDITORS

Contact: David Thorpe of Housing Works, +1-646-210-1805, thorpe@housingworks.org; or Noel Alicea of Gay Men’s Health Crisis, +1-212-367-1216, noel_a@gmhc.org; or Johnathon E. Briggs of AIDS Foundation of Chicago, +1-312-334-0922, jbriggs@aidschicago.org

NEW YORK, Nov. 28 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Housing Works, Gay Men’s
Health Crisis (GMHC), and the AIDS Foundation of Chicago — three of the
nation’s leading AIDS organizations — polled 16 man health best life
hopefuls on
pressing Health man s health
issues as part of an ongoing HIV/AIDS candidate and
voter education campaign. Now the results are available on AIDSVote.org.

“World AIDS Day is this Saturday, but you could also say that World AIDS
Day is Election Day 2008. That’s because our next President will have the
opportunity and the responsibility to end AIDS,” said Charles King, President
and CEO of Housing Works. “She or he will have the tools to treat 33 million
people living with HIV-including over a million Americans-around the planet,
as well as the tools to stop the spread of the virus. We’re here to build the
political will to make that happen.”

“More than ever, the American public is calling for meaningful health care
reform which includes bold leadership in the area of AIDS,” said GMHC Chief
Operating Officer Robert Bank. “Voters need to know what the candidates will
do to fight AIDS when determining their readiness to be President.”

The launch of AIDSVote.org, timed to coincide with World AIDS Day on
December 1, features the results of the AIDSVote.org candidate questionnaire
and Where Do They Stand? The Gay Men’s Health Crisis Report on the 2008
Presidential Candidates and HIV/AIDS Issues, a detailed portrait of every
candidate’s history in public life on HIV/AIDS issues.

The AIDSVote.org website answers questions like “where does Rudy Giuliani
stand on needle exchange funding?”; “will Sen. Barack Obama end federal
support for ineffective and harmful man sexual health education?”; and “will
Sen. Hillary Clinton redouble efforts against global HIV/AIDS?”. Voting
records and public comments provide the basis for GMHC’s the man health guide to peak conditioning
report
and a useful “quick chart” comparing the candidates’ AIDS-related public
record and positions.

    Some of the notable information available on AIDSVote.org and on GMHC.org:
    — The GMHC report documents, for the first time in one place, the stark
       differences between Democratic and Republican presidential candidates
       on nearly every AIDS issue.  For example, seven Democrats have
       committed to investing $50 billion to fight HIV/AIDS globally over the
       next five years.  No Republican candidate has made a similar
       commitment.  All eight Democratic candidates support comprehensive sex
       education, whereas seven of eight Republicans have opposed it.  Most of
       the Democrats support lifting the ban against HIV-positive foreign
       nationals visiting and/or immigrating to the U.S.; most Republican
       candidates either support the existing ban or have not come out against
       it.
    — The three leading Democratic candidates — Sen. Barack Obama, former
       Sen. John Edwards, and Sen. Hillary Clinton — have all publicly
       supported ending the ban on federal funding for needle exchange, a
       scientifically proven intervention to reduce the spread of HIV without
       increasing drug use.  President George W. Bush and former President
       Bill Clinton faced stiff criticism by public health experts for failing
       to lift the ban during their terms in office.
    — For the first time, five presidential candidates — Clinton, Edwards,
       Obama, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, and Gov. Bill Richardson — have committed
       to crafting a national AIDS strategy early in their first term if
       elected.  The creation of a comprehensive outcomes-based national AIDS
       strategy with explicit benchmarks and accountability mechanisms is a
       key plank in the AIDSVote.org platform.  The U.S. requires nations
       applying for billions of dollars in federal funding under the
       President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to develop such
       plans — but the U.S. has yet to develop its own national strategy to
       combat the domestic HIV/AIDS crisis.

AIDSVote.org is a nonpartisan voter and candidate education campaign
endorsed by dozens of leading AIDS organizations including the Campaign to End
AIDS, AIDS Action Council, the National Association of People with AIDS, the
Global AIDS Alliance, and HealthGAP.

While not endorsing candidates for public office, AIDSVote.org is
dedicated to ensuring that presidential candidates know about the best
possible strategies to make progress against HIV/AIDS in the U.S. and abroad.
The website includes domestic and global AIDS platforms, which detail how the
next president of the U.S. can end AIDS in places as remote as South Africa
and as close as South Carolina.

“We not only hope to better inform voters about how important HIV/AIDS
policy issues and the need for a national AIDS strategy are in the election
but also hope to better inform the candidates themselves,” said Rebecca Haag,
AIDS Action Council executive director.

“AIDSVote.org wants to make sure that whoever moves into 1600 Pennsylvania
Avenue in January 2009 will make ending the AIDS epidemic a top priority,”
said David Ernesto Munar, vice president at the AIDS Foundation of Chicago.
“It’s a matter of life and death.”

The answers to the candidate questionnaire and GMHC’s candidate report are
only the first installments that will be available on AIDSVote.org, which will
track the presidential candidates’ positions on HIV/AIDS up until the November
2008 election.

SOURCE Gay Men’s Health Crisis

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