Call to Obama on HIV and Drugs

posted: 04/02/2009

A rift between the EU and US over how to deal with global trafficking of illicit drugs is undermining international efforts to agree a new UN strategy.

The EU wants a pragmatic international drugs policy for the next ten years with harm reduction at its heart. Harm reduction measures to limit the spread of HIV and hepatitis among injecting drug users have been opposed by the USA under former president Bush.

The confrontation has been heightened because of suggestions that the US negotiating team is pushing the hardline, Bush administration "war on drugs", in contrast to the EU position which supports "harm reduction" measures such as needle exchanges.

Talks are said to be at breaking point in Vienna where representatives have gathered to hammer out a new UN declaration in time for a signing ceremony at a drugs summit in mid-March. Negotiations, which have been going on for three months, are due to resume today with no indication of a breakthrough.

New 10 year UN drugs declaration

At the heart of the dispute is whether a commitment to "harm reduction" should be included in the UN declaration of intent, which is published every 10 years. In 1998 the declaration was "a drug-free world - we can do it".

Need for harm reduction to tackle HIV and addiction

EU countries, backed by Brazil and other Latin American countries, Australia and New Zealand, say even with the best of intentions the world will not be drug-free in 10 years and some commitment to tackling HIV and addiction through needle exchange programmes and methadone and other drugs should be included.

The US position, as maintained throughout the Bush years, is that harm reduction sends the wrong message and must be resisted. President Obama has already lifted the ban on federal funding for needle exchanges and is known to have a more liberal approach to the issue, but the US negotiating team is opposed to varying the "drug-free" strategies of the past. The US is backed by Russia and Japan.

Governments at the talks acknowledge that no consensus has been reached. "Negotiations are currently complex but we are hopeful that a satisfactory conclusion can be achieved," a Home Office spokesman said.

Harm reduction works

Drugs policy experts expressed concern at the stalemate. "It is troubling that, despite clear global evidence of the effectiveness of harm reduction in reducing HIV and its acceptance in every other UN body, that the US is still resisting its inclusion," said Mike Trace, chair of the International Drug Policy Consortium and former UK deputy drugs tsar. "We are sure the incoming administration will take a different view but they will have to move fast or this will be the position for the next 10 years."

Obama and US drugs policy change

Danny Kushlick of Transform, the British drugs reform charity, said talks were at a crucial stage. "The race is now on to change the instructions from US officials before the ink dries on the previous administration's line," he said. "The implications of changing the political line is enormous for those who have suffered under the US administration's refusal to support basic harm reduction measures."
 

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Send a Message to Obama

posted: 29/01/2009

Where's the Cure is an appeal for change to new USA President Obama to redouble efforts to find a cure for HIV.

By adding your own photograph and message to the website, a book of the photographs and messages calling for change and redoubled efforts to find a cure, will be presented to president Obama, 100 days after he took office, on April 30, 2009.  

What to do to join in

• Make a sign saying: Where’s the Cure?  Be inventive with your signs - write it anywhere, but they warn you about not damaging or defacing other people's property. If you can't think of a unique solution, you can always download one of Amfar's own signs. View the gallery for inspiration and to see how inventive, creative and passionate for HIV change people can be. Think not just of producing a cool, edgy Where's the Cure sign but also of an interesting place to photograph it - at the top of the Wheel (the Manchester Eye), in front of the Bentham Tower, floating past the HIV Beacon of Hope along the Rochdale Canal at Canal Street, at the top of Blackpool Tower, in an 80s goth bedsit beside a poster of The Cure .....

• Take a picture of you and your Where’s the Cure? sign.

• register and upload it to their gallery, where you can vote on your favourites and view the other images in the gallery.

• You can check how progress is going. The Where's the Cure? book will be ready just before April 30.

Visit Where's the Cure and add your voice to the international calls to president Obama to act.

Obama Changes USA HIV Policy

posted: 29/01/2009

President Obama signalled an end to globally criticised aspects of Bush era HIV policy.

On Friday the president issued an executive order repealing Bush's "Mexico City" Policy. This banned U.S.A. funding for international health groups that use their own funds to perform abortions, lobby their governments in favour of abortion rights or provide counseling about terminating pregnancies.

Obama said that he would now work with Congress to restore funding to the United Nations Population Fund to prevent HIV/AIDS, reduce poverty, and improve health care access for women and children in 154 countries.

Obama's decision was praised by women's health advocates, family planning groups and others for allowing USAID to fund programmes that offer HIV prevention and care, birth control and medical services.

End to Bush funding cuts for HIV support

Critics of Bush’s "Mexico City" policy say it meant large cuts worldwide for organisations that provide family planning services and basic health care. For example in Ethiopia and Lesotho, some non-governmental organisations are not able to offer comprehensive and integrated health services to people living with HIV.

Shalini Nataraj of the Global Fund for Women writes of one operation in Ghana that lost funding because it refused to adhere to the "Mexico City" Policy, resulting in an estimated 600,000 people losing access to HIV/AIDS prevention education, counseling and family planning services.

We will need to wait to hear about Obama's plans with Congress to restore funding for these important aspects of international HIV work.

Women harmed by ban on sex workers support

The effects of the policy have been "compounded" by a requirement in Bush's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief that organisations receiving funding must oppose commercial sex work, Nataraj writes, adding that the "reasoning behind this pledge is that by denying services or outreach to those who work as commercial sex workers, such [sex] work will be abolished and HIV will be reduced."

She writes that the "reality is otherwise, because women enter sex work for a variety of deeply entrenched socio-cultural and economic reasons that must be addressed before [commercial sex work] can be reduced. This means that organisations that work with sex workers are threatened with a loss of funding for serving those most in need of information and protection from HIV".

Bush's U.S. Global AIDS Co-ordinator sacked

In another signal of change in USA international HIV policy, the Obama government has sacked Mark Dybul, U.S. Global AIDS Co-ordinator and administrator of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. An e-mail sent on Thursday to U.S. foreign aid officials said that Dybul is "no longer serving" as PEPFAR administrator and that the Office of the Global AIDS Co-ordinator "will continue to function under the leadership of career staff until a successor is confirmed." Dybul ran PEPFAR since 2006 and Congress extended his job for 5 more years just last summer.

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