Copyright 1999 The Baltimore Sun Company
THE
BALTIMORE SUN
July 20, 1999, Tuesday ,FINAL
SECTION: TELEGRAPH ,3A
LENGTH: 908 words
HEADLINE:
Gore unveils request to double funding to fight AIDS in
Africa; Activists who pester vice president call
$100 million not enough
BYLINE:
Jonathan Weisman
SOURCE: SUN NATIONAL STAFF
BODY:
WASHINGTON -- Determined to end noisy
AIDS protests against his White House campaign, Vice President
Al Gore announced yesterday that the administration will seek to double U.S.
funding to combat AIDS in Africa.
Flanked by South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and an
AIDS orphan from Uganda, Gore unveiled a request for
$100 million in additional funding to combat
AIDS worldwide, bringing the total request to
$225 million. Funds earmarked for Africa would
double from $74 million to about $150 million.
The vice president declared that the announcement "marks a real turning
point" for "an epidemic that is galloping onward, gaining speed and momentum."
Gore's presidential campaign has been dogged for more than a month by a
handful of brash protesters who maintain that the vice president has sided with
pharmaceutical firms to thwart the South African government's efforts to
introduce cheap AIDS drugs into its fight against the disease.
Even yesterday, administration officials said they would not allow
African governments to violate international intellectual
property rights regulations with the unilateral manufacture of patented
drugs such as AZT.
But by combating AIDS in other ways,
Gore hoped to show that he is sensitive to the crisis that has become
Africa's leading cause of death, killing 12 million in
sub-Saharan Africa at a rate of 5,500 a day.
Of the
total, $48 million would go for AIDS
prevention and education, $23 million for health care and home
treatment, $10 million to care for children orphaned by the
raging AIDS epidemic, and $19 million to help
countries strengthen their anti-AIDS programs, through disease
surveillance, prevention and community- based AIDS groups.
Yesterday's announcement was tailor-made to the cause, with a passionate
sermon from Tutu on the compassion of humankind and the tragic tale of Olivia
Nantong, whose Ugandan father died when she was an infant and who was orphaned
at 12.
As Nantong spoke through sobs and tears, first White House
AIDS czar Sandra Thurman and then Gore comforted and encouraged
her to tell how she had skipped school to care for a mother who had been shunned
by society and was dying an inexplicable, painful death. The audience sat in
rapt attention.
When the 20-year-old finished, she turned to Gore for a
hug.
"When we are good, we know it inside ourselves. It gives us a
satisfaction that nothing else can," Tutu declared. "What you have done, what
you are promising to do, makes God say, 'Aha, human beings really are something,
aren't they?'"
Daniel Zingale, executive director of the
AIDS Action Council, the nation's largest lobby on
AIDS issues, hailed the announcement as a "historic
breakthrough," saying Gore can win over the wider AIDS
community if he stays with it.
"I think the vice president should keep
his eye on making a real impact on AIDS in the developing
world," Zingale said. "I think today was an impressive start."
But if an
African Nobel laureate's blessing was supposed to immunize Gore from the charges
of the more strident AIDS activists, it failed.
Those
activists declared that more money would do nothing to answer their demands that
the United States allow governments to manufacture cheap AIDS
drugs, despite claims from pharmaceutical companies that those plans would
grossly violate their patent rights.
James Love, a vocal Gore critic and
head of the Consumer Project on Technology, called the announcement "a big
damage control effort" amounting to $4.50 each for 22 million
Africans infected with HIV.
"One hundred million dollars is fine," said
activist Wayne Turner of the AIDS group ACT-UP, "but it doesn't
address the issue of allowing South Africa to produce its own
cheap, generic version of AIDS drugs or to shop around and get
the cheapest price for drugs on the world market."
Two dozen
AIDS protesters ambushed Tipper Gore at a fund-raiser Thursday,
and organizers from ACT-UP say demonstrations will continue.
Congress
will provide a new forum for activists this week, when a House Government Reform
subcommittee holds a hearing on the issue, featuring some of Gore's most
strident critics. Republicans could find themselves in a strange coalition with
radical AIDS and gay rights groups in a verbal assault on the
Democratic front-runner for the White House.
Frustrated administration
officials said the AIDS activists simply do not understand the
situation in southern Africa, where AIDS remains misunderstood
and simply talking about sexually transmitted diseases is largely taboo.
"If you had all the free drugs available in the would, you could not get
them to the people," Thurman said. "Drugs don't help us at this point very
much."
John Keith, a 29-year-old Peace Corps volunteer just back from
South Africa, agreed. Drugs seem beyond the point when it is
still extremely difficult to get people to come to terms with how
AIDS is spread, much less whether they have it, he said.
As people die, their families insist they were killed by a cold or a
long illness. Moreover, Keith said, it is still widely believed that men can
cure themselves of the AIDS virus by raping a virgin.
"It's bad," he said. "People in the cities and villages are sort of
dropping left and right."
As for drugs and treatment, "the dialogue
never gets that far," Keith said.
"No one is even talking about what to
do once you get it."
GRAPHIC: PHOTO(S) Embrace:
Vice President Al Gore and Archbishop Desmond Tutu share a hug for the hope of
more funding to combat AIDS.
LOAD-DATE: July 21, 1999 
