June 11, 2001
Dear President Bush,
We are writing you with a very simple and urgent request. An
unprecedented global health emergency is killing millions of
people around the world. It is devastating the African continent.
The human toll of the HIV/AIDS pandemic will soon outpace
that of any comparable disease in human history.
We ask you to mandate your administration to respond with the
urgency this crisis requires, by reserving at least 5% of the
anticipated budget surplus each year to fight the AIDS
pandemic and to support related global health needs. At
current estimates, this would provide $7.1 billion dollars for
fiscal year 2002, and comparable amounts in following years if
present forecasts hold true.
For twenty years now the HIV/AIDS pandemic has raced
ahead of the global response. Over 50 million people have been
infected. Scientists, health workers and activists have gained
much experience and know what needs to be done. Although
there is yet no cure, antiretroviral drugs can now turn a certain
death sentence for millions into years of productive life. The
failure to prevent such deaths, when the means are available,
will increasingly be seen as the equivalent of mass murder.
In the last year we have seen new levels of public attention.
Africans and others have successfully challenged the
complacent assumption that those too poor to pay for treatment
should simply be left to die. Countries like Brazil, Uganda and
Senegal show that the growth of the pandemic can be reversed.
It is long past time to scale up action from pilot projects and
business-as-usual timetables, to save lives now and stop the
pandemic's exponential growth. More African governments are
taking action. The U.S. and other rich countries have pledged
new resources. But even the most ambitious proposals now
being considered by the U.S. government (such as Senator
Frist's proposal to add $200 million in new AIDS funding in
Fiscal Year 2002 and $500 million in Fiscal Year 2003, for a
total of $1.2 billion by the second year) still fall far short of the
minimum required.
Fighting the pandemic requires rejecting the false dichotomy
between treatment and prevention. Both are necessary.
Treatment in turn requires not only drugs, but also effective
mechanisms for delivery, care and monitoring. A comprehensive
approach also requires strengthening public health systems,
combating closely related infectious diseases, and addressing the
structural injustices that fuel the pandemic by marginalizing
vulnerable groups such as women, unemployed youth and the
poor in general.
Some may use the scale of the challenge to argue for continuing
to limit the response to prevention and research only. Such an
approach would only bring more death while failing to check the
pandemic's spread. We will not accept such a dismissal of the
value of African lives.
To maximize their capacity to respond, African countries must
be freed of the burden of foreign debt so that they can allocate
more of their own resources on healthcare. Countries must also
be free to exercise their full rights to obtain essential drugs at
the lowest-possible cost, including the use of generic
manufacturing and imports. But major increases in funding are
also essential. Cost estimates vary for the different components
of a full-scale response to the global health emergency.
Treatment for the estimated 2.4 million Africans infected with
HIV who could benefit from antiretroviral treatment, according
to one recent estimate, would cost approximately $2.7 billion a
year. UNAIDS estimates at least $3 billion a year for needed
prevention efforts in Africa. Add in treatment of related
diseases, necessary health infrastructure development, and
costs in other developing regions such as India and China where
the pandemic is beginning to spread more rapidly, and the total
required easily falls in the $15 billion to $20 billion a year range.
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has called for a
global fund of a more modest amount of $7 to $10 billion a year
to support a broad developing world campaign against the
AIDS pandemic.
Even the highest figure, however, is less than one penny out of
each ten dollars of the gross national product of the world's rich
countries. It is a small price to pay to save millions of lives. It is a
also a prudent investment, because failing to pay that price
will result in profound economic collapse that will ultimately
require even greater expense.
Mr. President, we believe that the real question is how much
inequality are we prepared to accept in the world today?
The international community is currently considering proposals
for a new global fund to respond to the health emergency. Such
a fund should provide resources quickly to governments, inter-
governmental organizations and non-governmental organizations
ready to scale up action against the HIV/AIDS pandemic and
related health problems. The U.S. should support this initiative
and stand ready to provide the necessary resources. A US
commitment of five % of next year's US budget surplus for all
global health expenses would only be about one-third of one
percent of estimated government revenues, about $25 a year for
each American. It is a price we should pay.
Mr. President, we call upon you to acknowledge that human
lives that can be saved should be saved, regardless of skin color
or location. We ask you to ensure that the U.S. pays its fair
share in fighting the most deadly pandemic in human history.
Sincerely,
Salih Booker - Executive Director, Africa Action
Congresswoman Eva Clayton (D-NC)
Religious Action Network (RAN):
State and Local Legislators Network:
Youth Action Network:
Advocacy Network for Africa (ADNA):
The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500
Rev. Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker - Canaan Baptist Church, New
York, NY
(RAN Co- Founder and President of the Board of
Directors, Africa Action)
Rev. Dr. Charles G. Adams - Hartford Memorial Baptist
Church, Detroit, MI
Rev. Dr. Christopher Allen Bullock - Progressive Baptist
Church, Chicago, IL
Rev. Dr. James A. Forbes, Jr. - Riverside Church, New York,
NY
Rev. Jesse Jackson - Rainbow/PUSH Coalition
Rev. Samuel B. Kyles - Monumental Baptist Church, Memphis,
TN
Rev. William Lawson - Wheeler Ave. Baptist
Rev. Samuel Mann - St. Mark’s Church, Kansas City, MO
Bennie Mitchell - US Labor Relations Department, National
Baptist Convention, GA
Dr. Otis Moss - Mt. Olivet Baptist Church, Cleveland, OH
Bishop Norman Quick - Childs Memorial Temple, New York,
NY
Rev. Dr. Franklyn Richardson - Grace Baptist Church, Mt.
Vernon, NY
Rev. Morris Shearin - Israel Baptist Church
Rev. Dr. J. Alfred Smith, Sr. - Allen Temple Baptist Church
Dr. Emil Thomas - Zion Baptist Church, Washington, DC
Rev. Lonnie Turner - Cooperative Baptist Fellowship
Canon Frederick B. Williams - Intercession Episcopal Church,
New York, NY (RAN Co-Founder)
Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr. - Trinity United Church of Christ,
Chicago, IL
Rev. Johnny Youngblood - St. Paul Community Baptist
Church
Arthur M. Cole - National Conference of Black Mayors Inc.
Carl Galmon - President, Louisiana Committee Against
Apartheid
Avel Louise Gordly - State Senator, Oregon Legislative
Assembly
Assemblyman William Payne - NJ State Assembly
Councilman Bill Perkins - New York City Council
Beryl Roberts - Attorney and former State Representative,
Miami, FL
Councilmember Annette Robinson - The Council of the City of
New York, Brooklyn, NY
Jack C. Sims - President, Mayland Black Mayors, Inc.
Leroy O. Smith - Denver, CO
Mayor Woodrow Stanley - Flint, MI
Assemblyman Albert Vann - NY State Assembly
Mayor Wellington Webb - Denver, CO
Sean Barry - International Youth Leadership Council,
Advocates for Youth, Washington, DC
Kelli Curry - Americans Mobilizing Against the Spread of
AIDS in Africa, New York, NY
Jennifer Kloes - Executive Director, Global Youth Connect,
New York, NY
Keleigh Matthews - Director of Programs, Metro TeenAIDS,
Washington, DC
Obumneme Egwuatu - Attorney, New York, NY
Johnnie Stevens - International Action Center/People Video
Network, New York, NY
Neil Watkins - Center for Economic Justice
Rob Cavenaugh - Legislative Director, Unitarian Universalist
Association of Congregations
Larry Daressa - Co-Director, California Newsreel, San
Francisco, CA
Julie Davids - Director, Critical Path AIDS Project
Peter J. Davies - US Representative, Saferworld
Rev. Paul Dirdak - Deputy General Secretary of Health and
Welfare -
General Board of Global Ministries, United
Methodist Church
Rev. Seamus P. Finn - Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate
Marcelina Gaoses - Albany, CA
William Goodfellow - Executive Director, Center for
International Policy, Washington, DC
Mark Harrington - Senior Policy Director, Treatment Action
Group, New York, NY
Clara Lou Humphrey - Colorado
Nuhad Jamal - Executive Director, Eritrean Development
Foundation, MD
Susie Johnson - Executive Secretary for Public Policy, United
Methodist Women (Washington office)
Kirimi Kaberia - President/CEO, ACTnet, VA
Heeten Kalan - Director, South African Exchange Program on
Environmental Justice
Wanjiru Kamau - African Immigrant Foundation, Washington,
DC
Sheila Kibuka - Executive Director - Hope Africa, Nairobi,
Kenya
Valerie Papaya Mann - Executive Director, Comprehensive
AIDS Resource Education Consortium, Washington, DC
David Mozer - Washington State Africa Network
Ms. Mistera Mulugeta - Founder/Executive Director, Axum
Institute, MD
Raymond C. Offenheiser - President, Oxfam America
Fr. Phil Reed - Society of Missionaries of Africa
Asia Russell - Coordinator, International Policy, Health GAP
Coalition, New York, NY
Ned W. Stowe - Legislative Secretary, Friends Committee on
National Legislation (Quakers)
Lynda Tidemann - Program Director, Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America
Robert Weissman - Co-Director, Essential Action, Washington,
DC
Phyllis S. Yingling - Chair, US Section, Women’s International
League for Peace & Freedom