Lawyers Lend Voices to Domestic HIV/AIDS Epidemic

By Williette Nyanue

BOSTON- Though the government has invested millions into the domestic HIV problem, those funds have not proven to be successful in achieving their purpose, said the American Bar Association HIV panel Saturday afternoon to a crowd of 30.

According to Ravinia Hayes-Cozier, director of government relations and public policy at the National Minority AIDS Council in Washington, the government has given $28 million to abstinence-only before marriage programs,” which she said have had “absolutely no impact on sexually transmitted diseases or HIV.”

The panelists agreed that the current largest federal program designed to help HIV/AIDS patients, The Ryan White Program, is not enough.

Though the panelists would “ask for an extension” for The Ryan White Program, set for reauthorization this year, panelists are pushing for the passage of the “The National Aids Strategy, of which Ryan White will fit into,” suggested Denise McWilliams, who is the director of policy and legal affairs at the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts.

Along with the hopes that the National AIDS Strategy Act will pass, the panel presented the audience with a number of ways in which the Obama Administration and the legal community could make sure that the domestic HIV/AIDS epidemic does not go neglected.

McWilliams noted that there is a “stigma associated with HIV that doesn’t come with diabetes or breast cancer” and hinders patients from getting tested, making the need for effective government run HIV/AIDS programs that much more important.
Catherine Hassens, founder and executive director of the Center for HIV Law and Policy in New York, proposes one way to end that stigma. President Obama must put in an executive order making it clear that “government agencies cannot use HIV infection in itself as a basis for the categorical exclusion or restriction for applicants or employees from any position or program.”

McWilliams suggested that lawyers lobby for more Syringe Exchange Programs (SEPs), because though there are only three Massachusetts, these programs have reported a “marked reduction in the number of transmissions in clients.”
SEPs allow people to bring in dirty needles in exchange for clean needles and also offer HIV testing as well as substance abuse treatment.

First-time conference attendee Carolyn Mikula said she had never before heard of the Syringe Exchange Programs. “My first reaction was, why are we distributing drug paraphernalia to people?” stated the 25 year-old Duquesne Law student, “but when she showed the statistics, and that it works...It’s kind of one of the those things where we can’t be idealistic.”

In a 2008 report on HIV/AIDS in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control reported that there were about 35,314 new cases of HIV/AIDS in adults, adolescents, and children in 2006 in the 33 states with confidential name-based HIV reporting. According to the same study, about 73 percent of these diagnosed cases were men, and 50 percent of all reported diagnoses were attributed to male-to male sexual contact.

According to the report, of the diagnoses of HIV/AIDS reported in 2006, blacks were affected the most accounting for nearly half of all cases documented. Another change in the new diagnoses of HIV/AIDS was the increase in women who account for about 27 percent of all reported cases, up 7 percent from 1995.

Hayes-Cozier suggested that the Obama administration first attack the issues regarding poverty due to the increasing relationship between the new cases of HIV/AIDS reported by people living in poverty-stricken areas. “If we don’t do something about poverty, we will never do something about HIV/AIDS,” suggested Hayes-Cozier.

This discussion was part of the ABA’s Mid-Year conference, held at Boston’s Hynes Convention Center. The weeklong convention brought together lawyers from all over the country to discuss issues ranging from domestic violence to committee and business meetings to, homelessness and poverty.

If there was one consensus of the panel, it was that the Obama administration has work to do regarding the domestic HIV/AIDS epidemic. “If we believe there is a crisis, we should have a stimulus reaction and I believe today we do not have a stimulus for HIV/AIDS,” stated Hayes-Cozier.