The FAIR Foundation is dedicated to fair and equitable distributions of Nation Institutes of Health (NIH) research funds for all diseases, including the sixteen that kill more Americans than AIDS.

Opinion-Editorial Submitted to the Desert Sun Newspaper

Let us not wait for the by-products of AIDS research

by Dr. Richard Darling, DDS

In response to The FAIR Foundation’s call for our government to allocate disease research funds more equitably without favoritism for AIDS, AIDS activist, K.B. Coleman[1] accuses FAIR of believing that “diseases primarily of the elderly justify a bigger piece of the pie,” and states he will continue to advocate for women and children [with AIDS].

The FAIR Foundation does not believe funds should be allocated based on a disease’s impact on any age group, but rather simply with emphasis on which disease kills the most Americans. In addition, we advocate secondary policies to insure that diseases causing great suffering with low mortality also receive increased funding. It is true that we believe the elderly should not be discriminated against because of their age.

Mr. Coleman’s focus on age and advocacy for “women and children” assumes AIDS is killing many women and the young as opposed to those illnesses affecting others. What diseases are killing women? Note these estimates for deaths of women: heart attack (267,000), lung cancer (68,510), breast cancer (40,410) and AIDS (4,736).[2]

In regards to children, the Centers for Disease Control estimates in its most recent HIV Surveillance Report[3] that there were 37 deaths in children under the age of 14 and 229 deaths in those 15 to 24 years of age. Compare that to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) which is estimated to kill 3,000 children annually.[4] Yet our government is spending $88 million on SIDS research versus $283 million on pediatric AIDS research,[5] and millions more are spent for AIDS research by private groups such as The American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR).

The Desert AIDS Project’s CEO, Allen Reese, also responded with an Op-ed.[6] Mr. Reese quotes Jeffrey Laurence, M.D., who is on amfAR's 107-member Scientific Advisory Committee[7]. Mr. Reese wrote that AIDS research funding is appropriate in that it has benefited hepatitis B and C patients, and it “may” benefit patients with Alzheimer’s disease, cardiovascular disease and breast cancer.

These gentlemen are correct in that AIDS research has benefited hepatitis B and C patients and those researchers deserve applause. These fortuitous benefits from AIDS research have resulted in the 5 drugs for hepatitis C patients that are effective on 50 percent of the five million sufferers. In contrast, there are 82 HIV/AIDS medicines already approved for the estimated one million HIV/AIDS sufferers with another 79 new drugs in development.[8]

Disparities like this are even more troublesome when one reads the new report from the AIDS organization, AIDSMAP, which states: “HIV-positive patients co-infected with hepatitis C are up to 80% more likely to die, even with HIV treatment.”[9]

The FAIR Foundation believes it is inappropriate to ask those with non-AIDS illnesses to wait for the by-products of AIDS research to help them. Because the government’s budgetary limitations have not allowed increases in research funding, it would be more fair and equitable, as well as productive, to share a portion of AIDS funding, which is ten percent of the entire federal research budget, with the non-AIDS scientists and let them study their own diseases of interest.

Although cardiovascular disease almost killed her, the amfAR Chairman of their “Campaign for AIDS Research,” and Hollywood star, Sharon Stone, exhorts Americans every few days on national radio to send amfAR more money: “AIDS is one nasty disease. We’ve made progress but more money is needed.”
It cannot go unnoticed that according to amfAR’s last IRS Form 990,[10] their CEO, Jerome Radwin, had total compensation and employee benefits of $320,134 and their 2004 Financials[11] state $6.5 million dollars were expended in salaries, benefits, travel and meetings versus $2.4 million dollars in grants and awards.

Richard Darling, DDS is the President and CEO of The FAIR Foundation (www.fairfoundation.org) and the National Public Citizen of the Year (NASW-03).

[1] July 29 “FAIR Fight Unneeded”
[2] http://www.fairfoundation.org/news_letter/2005/january/womenandaids.htm
[3] http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/stats/2003SurveillanceReport.pdf Page 15
[4] http://www.nichd.nih.gov/strategicplan/cells/SIDS_Syndrome.pdf
[5] http://www.fairfoundation.org/nih.htm
[6] July 17 “Benefits of AIDS research not limited to one disease”
[7] http://www.amfar.org/cgi-bin/iowa/amfar/record.html?record=6
[8] http://www.fairfoundation.org/pharma02.pdf
[9] http://www.fairfoundation.org/news_letter/2005/08august/newsletter.htm
[10] http://www.amfar.org/binary-data/AMFAR_PDF/pdf/128.pdf
[11] http://www.amfar.org/binary-data/AMFAR_PDF/pdf/107.pdf