John Whitehead's Commentary

"Africa is getting poorer and hungrier as life expectancy continues its steep decline in the countries hardest hit by the AIDS pandemic, according to a United Nations report released Thursday. It said infants born now in seven nations with high rates of H.I.V. infection could expect to live less than 40 years." - Celia Dugger, New York Times (July 16, 2004)

"In crib No. 17 of the Spartan but crowded children's ward at the Church of Scotland Hospital in KwaZulu-Natal, a tiny staring child lies dying," writes Johanna McGeary for Time magazine. "She is three and has hardly known a day of good health. Now her skin wrinkles around her body like an oversize suit, and her twig-size bones can barely hold her vertical as nurses search for a vein to take blood."

The baby in crib No. 17 was suffering from tuberculosis, chronic diarrhea, malnutrition and severe vomiting, among other ailments. The vial of blood revealed the basis for her numerous illnesses: the infant had AIDS. She died within several days.

Like a vicious monster, consuming everything in its path, the AIDS virus is sweeping over the African continent. To call it an epidemic is to miss the point. It is one of the worst plagues in world history, with 70 percent of all hospital beds in Africa occupied by AIDS victims.

Indeed, today there are over 40 million people living with HIV/AIDS around the world. Of this total, 28.1 million live in Africa, and 2.4 million are children.

In the hardest-hit African nations, between one-third and two-thirds of all 15-year-olds are expected to die of AIDS. Also, over 13 million children have been orphaned in Africa alone, with 40 million orphans being projected by 2010.

As the devastation continues and the corpses pile up, what are we in the West--and specifically the United States--doing to alleviate the problem? It has been 20 years since the U.S. government officially announced the discovery of the virus that causes AIDS and over a decade since effective drug treatments have been available. Yet, sadly, we have been largely silent.

In fact, I would venture to suggest that despite the rhetoric of numerous politicians, AIDS in Africa has never been on the front burner of our numerous social programs agenda. As Donald G. McNeil, Jr., points out in the New York Times (March 28, 2004), three years after the United Nations declared a worldwide offensive against AIDS and 14 months after George W. Bush promised $15 billion for AIDS treatment in poor countries such as Africa, "shortages of money and battles over patents have kept antiretroviral drugs from reaching more than 90 percent of the poor people who need them."

While President Bush promised in his 2003 State of the Union Address to spend $15 billion over five years on AIDS in countries such as Africa, his budget requests have fallen far short of that goal. In fact, the money spent on AIDS is a tiny fraction of what is being spent on military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States' minimal involvement in the 15th International AIDS Conference in Bangkok only serves to underscore the fact that the Bush administration does not really seem all that concerned with the epidemic and its effect on Third World countries.

For example, few people in foreign countries have been able to get lower-priced generic antiretroviral drugs, due in part to the fact that the Bush administration has so far paid only for medications that are still under patent and cost much more. "Advocates of cheap drugs," notes McNeil, "say the Bush administration has yielded to pressure from the pharmaceutical lobby to find ways to reject the generics."

So where do we go from here? Claiming to be motivated by humanitarian objectives, the U.S. has in effect become the police force of the world. However, our need to maintain a massive military budget should not come at the expense of other humanitarian efforts that could save human lives. If our word is to mean anything at all, President Bush must fulfill his promise to the African nations and the world to help in the fight against AIDS.

Former President Bill Clinton has, in some respects, taken the lead in fighting for lower-cost drugs. Recently, the Clinton Foundation obtained special drug prices for HIV/AIDS sufferers that are being extended to 16 countries in the Caribbean and Africa. Perhaps it is time for President Bush to follow Clinton's lead in negotiating more accessible and affordable solutions for those plagued by this disease.

The pharmaceutical industry has for years commanded top dollar for life-saving drugs. But in the case of AIDS, the problem can be greatly alleviated with readily available and less costly drugs. If the greed of the drug cartel cannot be stifled, the president, in conjunction with Congress, should immediately move under law and direct the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to quickly approve generic, less expensive, versions of the drugs, thereby making them available to countries that have been hardest hit by the AIDS crisis.

If America is truly a "Christian nation," which some insist it is, then in the Christian spirit of helping those in need, not only the government, but also the numerous churches, synagogues and other religious organizations that profess to serve the poor must put their money and efforts where they will help the most--that is, to alleviate the horrific AIDS problem. If not, as Stephen Lewis, the special U.N. envoy for AIDS in Africa, has said, "There are no excuses left, no rationalizations to hide behind, no murky slanders to justify indifference--there will only be the mass graves of the betrayed."

ABOUT JOHN W. WHITEHEAD

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at staff@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

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