Frontdesk by David Waggoner
Bangkok, Thailand, the site of this year’s XV International AIDS Conference (July 7–12), will prove to be a turning point for many governments and nations in the face of a worsening HIV pandemic. While billions of dollars have been pledged to fight the disease, and corporations, both large and small, are realizing that it’s in their best interest to educate employees and families, AIDS continues to threaten the very fragile fabric that makes civilization work. Vaccine candidates have come and gone in the blink of an eye; once-promising drugs have been shelved; and prevention efforts have become politicized and even stopped altogether. And AIDS has become the crouching tiger of Southeast Asia.
Part of the buzz in Bangkok will surely focus on China. While human rights continue to be abused in China and only a small fraction of the millions of Chinese HIVers are being treated—witness the staggering problem of an epidemic running out of control there—AIDS activists have found a new friend in Beijing. With its economic clout, China will prove a major player in both the development and deployment of HIV medicines in the foreseeable future because of the country’s ability to create generic forms of HIV drugs. The advance of a monolithic government like China’s will change the way pharmaceuticals perceive the problem of wider drug access for all.
The buzz will also surely pick up steam from the United States’ recent pledge of millions to fight HIV/AIDS in Vietnam. Although this is a beginning, at least it is a recognition by the Bush administration that former enemies can now become team players in the worsening epidemic in Southeast Asia. Geopolitics has never been a good way to approach a health crisis, but at least Washington is listening.
What is disheartening about the Bangkok conference is that this type of listening might not be sustained. Witness the drastic reduction in the size of the U.S. delegation going to Thailand. While the United States cannot tackle the impending holocausts in India and China alone, it would have been money well-spent to send a larger team to this year’s international confab. It’s only when the world works together can we build bridges out of this health crisis. The leadership role of the United States in Iraq could have been continued onto the other crisis affecting all nations. For, like terrorism, AIDS needs to be taken seriously by everyone, given no leeway, and vital resources should be dedicated to stopping its spread.
So while America’s representation may have been diminished to the size of Switzerland’s delegation, that doesn’t mean our nation’s activists, journalists, and educators shouldn’t take an active part in the HIV/AIDS pandemic. While America is particularly savvy about exporting Disney and MTV to every corner of the globe, sometimes we don’t seem farsighted enough when it comes to promoting international health policy. We can’t leave it to Bill Gates and George Soros to fight AIDS alone.
Perhaps America’s culture industry will export more than just the next hit song. Maybe those Americans in attendance—apart from the few officials—will tell the other countries who have sent more of a presence that we do care more than we seem to. That we are with them in this fight. And although HIV-positive peoples of the world are not welcomed to the United States, per se, at least two years from now—in Toronto, Canada, the site of the 2006 conference—they will only be a shout away from all of us.
July 2004
