White House Unveils National HIV/AIDS Strategy

The White House released the National HIV/AIDS Strategy today, the first time (more than 29 years after AIDS was discovered) the United States has had a coherent, coordinated response to this public health emergency.

From the press announcement:

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 13, 2010

White House Announces National HIV/AIDS Strategy

$30 Million of Prevention Fund Dedicated to Implementation of Strategy

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In the United States, approximately 56,000 people become infected with HIV each year and more than 1.1 million Americans are living with HIV. To combat this growing epidemic, the White House today released the National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS) and accompanying NHAS Federal Implementation Plan.

Secretary Sebelius also announced that $30 million of the Affordable Care Act’s Prevention Fund will be dedicated to the implementation of the NHAS. This funding will support the development of combination prevention interventions. It will also support improved surveillance, expanded and targeted testing, and other activities.

“We can’t afford complacency – not when in the ten minutes I’ve been talking to you, another American has just contracted HIV,” Secretary Sebelius said. “That’s why our strategy calls for aggressive efforts to educate Americans about how dangerous this disease still is and the steps they can take to protect themselves and their loved ones.”

The vision of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy is to make the United States “a place where new HIV infections are rare, and when they do occur, every person, regardless of age, gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, or socio-economic circumstance will have unfettered access to high-quality, life-extending care, free from stigma and discrimination.”

The NHAS has three primary goals:

1) Reducing the number of new infections;

2) Increasing access to care and optimizing health outcomes for people living with HIV;

3) Reducing HIV-related health disparities;

To accomplish these goals, the NHAS calls for a more coordinated national response to the HIV epidemic and includes a NHAS Federal Implementation Plan that outlines key, short-term actions to be undertaken by the federal government to execute the outlined recommendations. Additionally, the White House issued a Presidential Memorandum directing agencies to take specific steps to implement this strategy.

Since taking office, the Obama Administration has taken extraordinary steps to engage the public to evaluate what we are doing right and identify new approaches that will strengthen our response to the domestic epidemic. The Office of National AIDS Policy hosted 14 HIV/AIDS Community Discussions with thousands of Americans across the U.S. and reviewed suggestions from the public via the White House website. ONAP also organized a series of expert meetings on several HIV-specific topics, and worked with Federal and community partners who organized their own meetings to support the development of a national strategy.

Go to www.AIDS.gov and www.whitehouse.gov/onap for more information and resources.

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As Rod 2.0 points out, many AIDS activists have immediately criticized the NHAS, particularly the odious Michael Weinstein of AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the largest AIDS/HIV organization in the country (if not the world). The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force was kinder, saying:

“Today the Obama administration unveiled the first-ever plan for a coordinated strategy to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States. Such a plan is long overdue, and implementation can’t happen fast enough. On average, someone contracts HIV in the U.S. every nine and a half minutes. Each day without action means lives are changed forever, lives that are disproportionately gay, bisexual, transgender, people of color, and the financially disadvantaged.

“This plan offers much-needed relief by focusing on high-risk communities, directing money to states with the highest need based on reported cases of HIV/AIDS, and by recognizing the unique needs of affected populations. The administration has taken a historic step today in the fight against HIV/AIDS. However, the plan doesn’t yet go far enough in ending new infections and helping those already coping with the disease to manage it. The government must make available the necessary resources and life-saving medicines for those in need. Adequate attention to and funding for implementation as well as aggressive timetables are essential to the success of this plan. This ongoing national tragedy requires an immediate, potent and cohesive federal response that is appropriately funded.”

MadProfessah applauds the Administration for actually announcing and implementing a National HIV/AIDS Strategy, something which has been needed for a long time.