Frontdesk by David Waggoner
Here it is, America’s birthday. Two hundred and thirty-one years old we are, and yet there is little to celebrate—at least on the AIDS front. As the world’s only democratic superpower, the United States has the wherewithal to end AIDS once and for all. Researchers and pharmaceutical companies have created an excellent arsenal of weapons against the virus; but there is still no cure, no vaccine, and no real strategy in large parts of the world—except to practice denial.
While HIV continues to ravage many parts of Africa, and is now beginning to worry the Chinese more than food recalls and polluted rivers and skies, the world has only three short years to make good on its promise for universal access to AIDS drugs. And the status of our progress looks a lot like the status quo—action that has slowed down to a crawl. Without meeting that promise to treat those who already have the virus, what good is it to hope for a cure? From Bono to Bill Gates, the world can’t help but hear strong messages; but where is the international governmental response? Where is the concerted and consistent war on AIDS?
In less than a year, many of us will be meeting in Mexico City at the next International AIDS Conference, bringing the world’s attention to some of the hottest of the epidemic’s hot spots: Latin America, the Caribbean, and South America are all experiencing their own mini-epidemics. Brazil, to be sure, is turning the tide—creating its own generic AIDS drug industry from the ground up. In a sense, Brazil is doing what many cannot do: making access happen. It takes enough know-how, enough scientific infrastructure, and enough strong leadership to overcome the international AIDS crisis. Perhaps only by realizing this can we make universal access a reality for more than just a few countries. Universality is what our founding fathers invented in Philadelphia, constituting something unique and new and never heard of before: “We the People...”
In this month’s cover story, Dann Dulin takes an early summer cruise with one of our favorite long-distance AIDS activists and television stand-outs, Judith Light. Star of such hit shows as Ugly Betty and Who’s the Boss?, Ms. Light believes in the united effort and has also fought many of the battles in the AIDS war. With her hundreds of fundraisers and awareness activities, Light has joined in the fight like very few others in Hollywood. Acting up longer than ACT UP has been acting up, Light has never taken her friends (positive and negative alike) for granted. A lot of this has to do with—as she herself says—what she gets back in the process of challenging the AIDS status quo. “It was during the height of the AIDS pandemic when it really hit me hard. The government turned its back, so I felt compelled to say this wasn’t just a disease that was happening only to my [gay] family. Everybody pretended like America was this perfect, compassionate country and I said, ‘But you’re not! This is hypocrisy.’ Two American Presidents wouldn’t even say the word ‘AIDS.’”
And like so many other heroes who we have celebrated on the cover, Judith Light is a renewable source of energy with her commitment to the HIV community. In 1988, Light starred in The Ryan White Story. Late last year she received the Red Ribbon of Hope Award from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Her ongoing role in fighting AIDS both on-screen and off is one of the reasons that A&U is proud to have her in our family. She’s not wearing the red ribbon for show; she’s showing the world that there is hope, and there is a future, if we all stand together and take on the virus. She’s definitely the boss in my book!
July 2007 |
