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AIDS activists say Obama's decisions failing people with HIV
On World AIDS Day, December 1 2009, AIDS activists gathered in front of the White House and then marched to DC's Wilson Building with a clear message for President Obama and Mayor Fenty: "maintain the current, flawed course and millions will die"or fix the system and they will live."
In front of the White House the activists staged a funeral procession, presided over by Rev. Jeffrey Jordan of Philadelphia and Rev. Carolyn Boyd of Washington, DC. The somber funeral revealed the human impact of President Obama's planned flat-lining of global AIDS funding in next year's budget. Without promised funding increases, thousands will be denied access to AIDS treatment. According to a recent WHO report, HIV is now the number one killer of women of reproductive age worldwide. Global AIDS groups on Monday gave President Obama a "D+–having failed to deliver new funding promised when he was running for President.
Activists then marched to the John A. Wilson Building, seat of the DC government, to demand action from the Mayor and City Council. In a creative display of street theater, the group demonstrated how deeply the health system is failing people living with HIV in the District of Columbia. Local AIDS activists say that while progress has been made under Director of the HIV/AIDS Administration Dr. Shannon Hader, the Fenty Administration still lacks a plan turn the tide of the epidemic and has made insufficient progress in correcting the impact of years of neglect. For example, neither the District nor the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development have a plan to house the hundreds of homeless people who are currently sick with complications from AIDS and who have languished on a waiting list for years while funding was mismanaged.