Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 1, 2000)
Friday Editor in chief: Jack Clifford Managing Editor: Jessica Blanchard Newsroom: (541) 346-5511 Room 300, Erb Memorial Union P.O. box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403 E-mail: ode@oregon.uoregon.edu EDITORIAL EDITOR: MICHAEL J. KLECKNER opededitor@journalist.com AIDS funding must be stepped up Today, the world will cele brate the 13th annual World AIDS Day. OK, maybe cele brate isn’t the right word. The world will observe this recogni tion of the AIDS epidemic, with a fo cus on sub-Saharan Africa. Current figures from UNAID, the United Na tion’s AIDS organization, show that the world has added more than 5 mil lion new AIDS cases this year. UN AID estimates that 36.1 million adults and children worldwide are currently living with HIV and AIDS. Of those infected, 25.3 million are in sub-Saharan Africa, 5.8 million are in South and Southeast Asia, and 1.4 million are in Latin America. This truly a worldwide problem, and the world needs to spend more time and energy on prevention, education and research for a cure. In 1981, the disease now known as AIDS was identified in the United States. That year, the Centers for Dis ease control spent only $1 million on research, while spending millions more on lesser threats, such as Le gionnaire’s Disease. Thanks largely to Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., Con gress began more aggressive funding, despite President Reagan’s staunch opposition. In 1985, there were near ly 13,000 cases of AIDS in the United States. Presidents Reagan and Bush fought for 12 years against Congress’ efforts to increase funding for AIDS re search, education and care. If their intent was to make the epidemic worse, they succeeded. Today, there are more than 400,000 people living with AIDS or HIV, and more than 425,000 have died from the disease since 1981. Government assistance has grown along with infections: The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates the federal government spent $9.7 billion in 1999 on a wide variety of HIV/AIDS programs. So what will a new president bring to the AIDS fight? The picture is un clear. If Texas Gov. George W. Bush is elected, many executive AIDS pro grams may be derailed. If Vice Presi dent Al Gore is elected, new AIDS funding will face a fight from the Congress. AIDS funding has barely been keeping up with the increasing costs of administering health care and doing research, and the situation isn’t likely to dramatically change. Additional funding for domestic research and prevention isn’t going to solve the problem, however. Atti tudes in wealthier Western countries about the disease need to change. In travenous drug users continue to get infected, and the fastest-growing de mographic of new HIV infections is heterosexual women. But AIDS still carries the stigma of its early associa tion with gay men. Even among that demographic, infection rates are ris ing after a decade of decline. Recent studies have found that younger gay men in America seem to think that AIDS isn’t that large a threat. Perhaps this is because of the advanced drug “cocktail” therapies that allow the in fected to live better, longer lives. But people with AIDS still die premature ly. There is no cure. Western coun tries need to realize this and redouble their efforts on research and preven tion. Eastern Europe and the former So viet Union have an AIDS attitude problem as well. Much like China a few years ago, the public perception is that no AIDS problem exists. The threat isn’t discussed, and as a result infections in the area have doubled in the last year, adding more than 500,000 new AIDS cases, according to the UNAID report. Most of these are among IV drug users and sex workers. In developing nations, the situa tion is substantially worse. In Africa, the rate of new infections is finally dropping — but this isn’t a good thing. Reuters reports that so much of the sexually active population is al ready infected, there aren’t many more people to become infected. Nearly one in 10 African adults is in fected with the disease. And in Africa, treatment and infection are is sues of race, class and gender. Med ication is often only available to the wealthy or the white in larger cities. Small villages often don’t have the medical infrastructure to distribute medication, even if they could afford it. Discussing AIDS is seen as a threat to masculinity in many African coun tries, and women are not often em powered to control their own sexual destiny. To add to the difficulty in Africa, the 13th International AIDS confer ence in Durban, South Africa, this summer ended up not focusing on finding ways to get more internation al assistance, but instead became an argument about whether HIV causes AIDS and whether sick people diag nosed as having AIDS in Africa actu ally have AIDS, or whether they sim ply have other opportunistic infections. These are certainly big questions that the scientific commu nity needs to investigate. But the harsh reality is that Africans need help now. The world currently has 36 million people infected with AIDS. That may not seem like much compared to the world population. But then, 13,000 infections in the United States in 1985 didn’t seem like much. The in ternational community needs to use World AIDS Day to re-energize and refocus worldwide efforts to stop this epidemic. The United States needs to do its part as well. If we don’t, those 36 million will only be the tip of the iceberg, and in 15 years we’ll all be asking why we didn’t do more earlier. This editorial represents the opinion of the Emerald editorial board. Responses can be sent to ode@oregon.uoregon.edu. Criticism of Health Center's flu shot policy was ‘cheap shot’ Guest Commentary Anne Leavitt -_i Your editorial ( “Needed: A shot of good judgment,” ODE, Nov. 29) about the Uni versity Health Center’s management of flu vaccine was both inaccurate and unfair. Dr. Gerald Fleischli is charged by the University with managing medical and health care resources, including flu vaccines, to protect and promote the health of currently enrolled students. As you know, the distribution system for flu vaccines this year has been unusually erratic and unpredictable. Health care providers have had to decide on an al most daily basis how best to distribute the dosages of vaccines as they become available. Dr. Fleischli has followed guidelines from the Communicable Disease Center, recommendations from the Student Health Advisory Council, and past practices in seeking to make these doses available first to stu dent members of our community whose health is at risk, and, as supplies permit, to faculty and staff. Student athletes are among the students whom the University Health Center serves. Medical staff at the center and at the Athletic Department have regularly recommended that student athletes with travel schedules be inoculated to reduce the health risks of exposure to communicable diseases while away from campus. This year, because of the un predictable supply of vaccines, the number of dos es available to athletes was reduced by three-quar ters, from about 200 doses to only 50. The vaccine was also offered to other students whose health might be at risk, including students being treated by the center for diabetes, asthma or other particu lar medical conditions. To date, student demand for flu vaccines has not exceeded the supply available at the health center. With the number of doses on hand anticipated to increase, the health center has extended the vac cine to healthy students and to healthy faculty and staff. The center even anticipates having enough doses on hand to hold special flu clinics on the next two Saturdays. You may be disappointed with Dr. Fleischli’s medical judgment that some student athletes should have flu protection while traveling on be half of the University of Oregon, but that doesn’t make his professional judgment “unethical.” That was a cheap shot! I hope you will now get your own flu shot and enjoy your holiday with protect ed health. Anne Leavitt is the associate vice president for student affairs and dean of students at the University. Letters to the editor Popular-vote election has draw backs Abolishing the electoral system may superficially appear an appro priate remedy for a seemingly unfair voting process, but I’m doubtful a popular vote would be better. Currently, presidential campaigns concentrate on states with the most electoral votes, and it makes sense. Less time and money is spent to •reach the most people. The smallest .siates jusuaLly .eLcu^tgel.a campaign. stop, but eliminating the states’ vote won’t fix selective campaigning. If we adopted a popular vote, what would happen? Candidates would fo cus on large cities rather than whole states. Instead of Gore campaigning throughout California, he would probably hit only San Francisco and Los Angeles (27 million people com bined) and then move on. If he went north, he might not even hit Portland (2 million people) in favor of Seattle (3.5 million people). In a popular-vote election, candi . dates might avoid the Northwest en .LfrhTyttW.E^t'Ghdst'i^.Wp'rfe. popu lous. New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago and Philadelphia offer about 42 million people, and visits are cheaper than flying west. The Electoral College makes California a “must have,” with Washington and Oregon considered pivotal. One thing worth supporting about the popular vote is that minority votes matter more than with the Elec toral College. Lefties in Texas and the Midwest won’t be heard because of the majority. The same with Califor nia and New England conservatives. Voting by district within states might be a fairer (but-not the best) way of handling this discrepancy without plummeting toward a big-city bias. Jon House anthropology CORRECTION In the Nov. 30 issue of the Emer ald, the story “Alliance strives to end indifference” should have read: The Lane County Public Health Department has created a display of past World AIDS Day posters in the Public Health Service Building, located at 15 E. 8th Ave. in Eugene. It will be open for public viewing through Dec. 1 Campus “Whys” As theterm comes to an end, ponder these timeless questions: Why can’t the weather in Eugene choose to be either really cold or really rainy, rather than torture us with both? Why did Subway abandon the “scoop cut” for its bread, instead reverting to the “flat cut,” which allows more food to fall out? Why doesn’t the University focus as much on students’ proficiency in de* cencyand integrity as it does on their understanding of diversity? Why doesn't every classroom on campus have a clock? And, related, Why do some pro fessors think it’s OK to keep teaching and making assign ments five minutes past the end of class? Why is the Calculus solutions manual, which helps hun dreds of students learn, missing from the Math Library? Why isn't the presi dential election finished yet? Why is our term break nearly five weeks long? Oh, wait, forget that one. Why haven’t I fin ished those last six chapters? And one related “what,” to break the rules, What is the cumula tive number of unread chapters on campus this term?
