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.

“The End of AIDS”

A 5/6/06 Broadcast on CNN

CNN’s Dr. Gupta:

· ..a lot of people are dying today because we can't distribute medicine that we could otherwise get out there because we don't have the healthcare infrastructure.

· “Will a pregnant woman with HIV pass it on to her baby? Well, the answer might surprise you.” “…Well, the answer is a qualified no. And thanks to the miracle of medicines, that chance, now, can be reduced to almost zero.”

· “..you [referring to Pfizer CEO, Hank McKinnell] have drugs, medicines that work well, prolong people's lives, even giving them normal life spans.”

· “So far, we've focused just on the developing world, but HIV/AIDS is still a major crisis in the world's richest nations as well, including right here in the United States.

o In Dr. Darling’s FAIR Foundation presentations throughout the USA he states, “AIDS is no longer a crisis in the USA. He says that because if we call AIDS a crisis when it is killing an estimated 15,900 here, then how do we describe cardiovascular disease which kills over 900,000 annually or diabetes which kills more than AIDS and breast cancer combined. Let us not use rhetoric in discussing illnesses, let us use the facts.”

· “…And whether it's on the streets of New York, right here, or in the dirt roads of Africa, the most vulnerable AIDS victims are the children.” “I'm a Dad and I'm a doctor. And it's heartbreaking for me to know that each day 1,800 babies are born infected with HIV.”

o Here Dr. Gupta again exaggerates greatly regarding AIDS and children in New York (the USA) and also by not stating “globally” when referencing the 1,800 babies that he states are born daily with HIV. The CDC’s 2004 Surveillance Report gives the number of deaths in children in the USA under the age of 13 to be eighteen and the number of deaths from ages thirteen to nineteen to be 48.[i] By any reasonable analysis, this represents few and illustrates the great success against AIDS in the USA. Furthermore, Sandra Burchett, M.D., M.Sc., an infectious disease specialist at Children's Hospital in Boston and an associate in pediatrics at Harvard Medical School states what is commonly accepted as fact now, "Children who are diagnosed with HIV infection early and receive treatment for HIV can live not just better, but truly healthy, normal lives."

· “You know, you might say it's optimistic to talk about the end of AIDS, but I don't think so. We're doing more than ever to prevent and treat this disease, and by working together, pooling our resources and talking about it, we're going to save millions of lives.”

President Clinton:

· Nobody has to die.”

· “..it's 100 percent preventable..”

· “Most children who get it in the developing world die because hardly any of them get any medicine. And the health systems that exist around the world are, so far, incapable of getting the proper messages on both prevention and treatment to people.”

· “..we still pay, at our Harlem clinic right around the corner from this church…the government pays, I think, about $10,000 a person a year for the medication.”

· “…I commend President Bush and the Congress for appropriating far more money than we could ever get back in my second term. We did triple overseas assistance to AIDS, but I commend them for that.”

o In the following paragraph, President Clinton states his fix for more AIDS patients getting the drugs that they need. Keep in mind that since the onset of HIV disease, 200 billion dollars has been spent battling HIV disease and the vast majority of that has gone to treatment, drugs, housing and overall care.

· We have a model for a fix for the problem of the people whose incomes are a little too high to qualify for AIDS. We had exactly the same situation when I was president in my second term with people with severe disabilities. And essentially what we said was, look, we'd be better off if a guy -- let's say a woman or a man is disabled and getting $25,000 a year worth of Medicaid care. And if they go to work and make $15,000 or $20,000 with a part time job or a full time job, they lose all that. Then we -- but if they were working and paying taxing and getting this care, we'd still -- the society would be ahead and they would be way ahead. So we changed the law for people with severe disabilities so they could go to work and still keep drawing Medicare -- caid. We could do the same thing for people with HIV/AIDS. There's a simple legislative fix here. It would not net out costing the taxpayers more money and if we would prove far more consistent with our values and what makes common sense. So we should take the disability fix and apply it to people with HIV and AIDS. and that would solve that.

o FAIR would ask why diabetes, hepatitis C, and other non-HIV patients were left out here when applying the “disability fix?” Indeed, in THIS VIDEO from 1999, President Clinton states, “Since I’ve become President, we’re spending ten times more on AIDS than we are on breast cancer, or prostate cancer.”

· “I agree with what was said earlier about the ABC Program, Abstinence, Be faithful, and then Condoms.” [to end global AIDS]

· In response to Dr. Gupta’s question to President Clinton, “What is the solution,” the former President said, “Well, first of all, if we're going to end AIDS, I agree that we have to keep working on the vaccine, the microbicides, cure and other prevention strategies. There's a sweeping new study that has not yet been validated, but it's encouraging, saying that if a lot of these countries adopted male circumcision they could reduce communication of the virus by more than 50 percent. It may not be accurate. We only have one study that says that.”

· President Clinton’s closing quotes:

1. “I actually believe we can end AIDS”

2. “..we all have a moral obligation to help keep as many people alive and healthy and able to live their dreams as possible. That means we have to have a prevention and treatment program, and care. It means we have to build up the health infrastructure. It means we have to make the medicines available. It means we have to push the prevention.”

Helene D. Gayle, President of CARE-USA, and the International AIDS Society. Member of the boards of the Institute of Medicine and the Council on Foreign Relations, Former director of the National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention and Former director of the HIV, TB and Reproductive Health Program at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

· “…we also have to remember there's not just treatment. In order to really make an impact on this epidemic, we also have to stay focused on prevention.”

· “…We have five million new infections occurring around the world every year. We cannot keep up with the treatment needs unless we also look at this comprehensively and focus on prevention.”

· “…95 percent of new infections are occurring globally.”

Dr. Zeda Rosenberg, CEO, International Partnership for Microbicides:

· “…the virus is spreading most rapidly in women and girls throughout the world. From New York to Nairobi, it is women who bear the brunt of this epidemic.”

o Dr. Rosenberg exaggerates when referencing New York (the USA). In 2004 the number of HIV/AIDS cases in men in the USA was 28,117 and the number of cases in women was 10,391.[ii] In addition, the number of deaths in American women from heart disease, lung disease, breast cancer, colon-rectal cancer and AIDS is 267,000, 68,510, 40,410, 27,951 and 4,138 respectively. [iii]

Thembi Ngubane, a South African young person living with AIDS:

§ “…I don't think abstinence will work with the young people because most of them have already had sex. So it would be hard to practice abstinence.” “[Abstinence does not work where I live] because most of the children, they have already experienced sex. Because we don't have anything to do that is fun. Sex is free. Sex if fun. And you can't get arrested from having it.”

Text Overlay to TV show:

· Expanded use of HIV/AIDS drugs saved over 250,000 lives in 2005

FAIR: The entire CNN transcript is available here.

“Today, there are more than 20 drug regimens available that allow a person with AIDS to live a normal lifespan..” from by Dr. Gupta at http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/conditions/04/25/aids.gupta.btsc/index.html

FAIR: In January of 2005 we reported the following: According to the President and CEO of The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA)......., there are 79 new HIV AIDS drugs in development, which is in addition to the 82 medicines already approved. Compare to the number of medicines you have for your illness. For example, there are 5 drugs for hepatitis C, which is now acknowledged by dozens of HIV organizations and physicians as the leading killer of HIV patients with liver illness.

[i] http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/reports/2004report/table7.htm

[ii] http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/reports/2004report/table5b.htm

[iii] http://www.fairfoundation.org/news_letter/2005/january/womenandaids.htm