The article “Obama Is Criticized on AIDS Program,” which appeared in the New York Times on December 8, 2009, reports on AIDS advocates’ angry reactions to the current administration scaling back its program to distribute antiretroviral medications. The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, also known as Pepfar, has put 2.4 million people on the drugs since President Bush established it in 2004, at a rate of about 500,000 people a year. A new “Five Year Strategy,” introduced on December 1st, makes a goal of putting an additional 1.6 million on antiretrovirals by 2014, at a rate of 320,000 a year. The administration is channeling funds no longer purchasing the expensive medications into buying cheaper goods that will fight diseases like pneumonia, diarrheal diseases, and malaria. Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, an adviser to the Office of Budget and Management, proposed this idea of saving more lives with less money in his November 2008 paper “U.S. Health Aid beyond Pepfar.” Emanuel’s paper evidently held greater sway than an open letter to President Obama written by dozens of medical school presidents and deans, urging expansion of AIDS treatment as the pandemic continues to infect more people. At this time, the World Health Organization estimates that about 14 million people worldwide are in need of antiretroviral drugs; Pepfar and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria pay for the treatment of about 4 million of these.
Donald G. McNeil Jr. is a science and health correspondent for the New York Times. He specializes in reporting on disease, and he has won awards for two article series about AIDS in Africa. In this article, he balances quotes from Dr. Emanuel and Dr. Eric Goosby, chief of Pepfar, with the opinions of Dr. Martin J. Blaser, one of the signers of the open letter to Obama, and Chris Collins, director of an AIDS research foundation. For sources, McNeil cites World Health Organization policies and the “Five Year Strategy” released by Pepfar. Actually, McNeil’s greatest bias is against this new plan, which, he says, “is nearly silent on several controversial issues: how much Pepfar will emphasize abstinence, whether and how it will get condoms to patients of the many missionary hospitals that refuse to issue them…and whether it will cut off countries that criminalize homosexual sex.” Though McNeil betrays his poor opinion of the plan’s definition, the article is largely balanced, highly informative, and very convincing.
The article left me a bit conflicted. It reminded me of the “Epidemic Scorecard” we saw earlier this year; as Emanuel did in his paper, it gave AIDS a lower priority than malaria, diarrheal diseases and tuberculosis. Unlike the scorecard, however, this article encouraged me: I had not previously known about the existence of Pepfar or the Global Fund. The two are taking a stand against AIDS, and will not suffer too much if some of Pepfar’s funding goes to fighting other epidemics. Any progress against disease is good; unfortunately, it’s also wildly expensive, costing billions of dollars. In choosing an article for this review, I passed over one that pointed out that countries are maintaining their space programs while their people die of disease. As much as I believe that space exploration is important to expanding our understanding of the universe, I think that governments worldwide might do well to take a break from their telescopes and look after their people.
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I really like this article. I especially liked how at the end Eric gave a way in which the countries that are most effected by AIDS could gain funding by using their space programs less. This was a great idea and I think when Eric read this he read it very unbiased because I was able to understand both sides of the argument.
ReplyDeleteI can understand where both sides are coming from because when I try to decide what I think would be the best side to choose, I can't. I can see why people would want to not cut down on the AIDs medicine because it is a huge epidemic in Africa and other parts of the world. Also I think that many people in those countries are not educated enough about how to prevent AIDs. I think that even though there are other epidemics in these countries, I think it is really necessary to continue with the same amount of medicine or even better, more. But I also understand the part about the other epidemics. There are a lot of deadly epidemics that are simply over looked because people think that AIDs is the worst, when people also are dying from these diseases. I also believe that something should be done to get more funding and money towards the program. So many people are dying in other countries compared to the US. I think it is our responsibility to help them since we are a wealthy country that has a lot of knowledge about medicine.
I completely agree with Gracie and Eric, people should be more concerned with people on earth than any other place. Although there are so many other epidemics they should still focus just as much on AIDS. AIDS is very serious and it would help if many more people were properly educated. It is frustrating that this people can put priority on a disease and decided which one needs the most attention. They should try to find ways to get more funding for experiments on diseases. I also like the way that both the author and Eric talk about this issue from both sides and can relate to both opinions.
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