Page A4
(Pbsrnirr
December 26, 2001
Opinion
Opinion articles do not necessarily reflect or represent the views
of
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AIDS Tragedy Gets Lost in the Headlines
B ernice P owell J ackson
The terrorist attacks o f Sept.
11 and their afterm ath have up­
staged other tragedies in the
w orld’s attention, including the
on-going tragedy of HI V/AIDS
around the world.
Even the m arking o f Dec. 1
as W orld A ID S Day somehow-
got lost in the headlines o f the
grow ing violence in the M iddle
East, the bom bings in A fghani­
stan and the continuing mystery
o f anthrax in A m erica.
A lthough we in the U.S. tend
to think that AID S is a disease
w hich had been eradicated be­
c a u s e o f th e s u c c e s s o f
antiretroviral drugs over the past
decade, nothing could be fur­
th er from the truth.
Indeed, as A m erican public
health officials focus on anthrax
and the possibilities o f smallpox
infection, HIV/AIDS continues
to stalk poor people and people of
color. For exam ple, the African
Am erican com m unity, which is
about 12percentoftheU .S.popu­
lation, accounts for 47 percent of
the U.S. AIDS cases reported in
2000. Y oung women o f color are
particularly vulnerable, with al­
most one-third of new HIV-posi­
tive cases am ong women.
And if H IV /A ID S in the U.S.
has dropped o ff the radar screen
o f m ost A m ericans, one can be
sure that we have very little
understanding o f the im pact of
this disease around the world.
M ost o f us, for instance, have
no idea that there are 40 m illion
people in the w orld living w ith
HIV/AIDS, including 2.7 million
children. In this y ear alone, 5
million new people were infected
w ith the d isease and 3 m illion,
including m ore than h a lf a m il­
lion children, have died from it.
In Africa HIV/AIDS has taken
on a whole new meaning. Indeed,
a whole generation o f Africans
has been nearly wiped out. More
by
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w hom the poor nations o f A f­
rica rely on for public m anage­
m ent and core social services.
But the im pact o f the A ID S
epidem ic in A frica is not only
on those w ho are dying.
There are the m illions o f o r­
phans in a society, which in the
past alw ays cared for orphaned
children within the extended fam­
ily, but now finds no family left.
Too many people in the
world are living with their
heads in the sand when it
comes to HIV/AIDS.
- Bernice Pow ell Jackson, executive m inister.
U nited C hurch o f C hrist
than two-thirds of those who died
from AIDS this year were A fri­
cans. M illions more have died in
the past decade.
That m eans that 7 m illion A f­
rican farm ers have died since
1985, w ith another 16 m illion
expected to die, w hich tra n s­
lates to w idespread food sh o rt­
ages and very real hunger for
m illions o f people. T hat m eans
that m illions of school children
have lost their teachers to AIDS,
with hundreds of schools forced
to close. T hat m eans that large
num bers o f doctors and health
care w orkers are dying, as are
m any o f the sm all num ber of
highly skilled civil servants upon
How will these children be fed
and clothed and cared for by a
social service system that too
often finds its funds diverted to
pay o ff national debts still car­
ried by some developing nations?
How will these poor nations
get the estim ated 15 percent o f
their national budget needed to
im prove their health care when
their young adult generation has
been decimated? And what about
the tens of thousands of children
in A frica w ho are living with
HIV/AIDS and who surely will
die w ithout the necessary and
expensive medications?
H IV /A ID S has becom e the
biggest threat to the continent’s
developm ent in our lifetim e. All
o f w hich m akes even m ore in ­
credible the position of South A f­
rican President Thabo M beki who
still seem s to be in com plete d e ­
nial about h i n a t i o n and A ID S.
Early on in his presidency and
despite years o f scientific evidence,
he refused to acknow ledge that
HIV leads to AIDS and was slow
in getting his national public health
officials working on the crisis.
D esp ite P re sid e n t M b e k i’s
claim that A ID S is not a crisis in
S outh A frica, one in nine South
A fricans is living with AIDS and
a third o f the pregnant w om en in
som e provinces there have tested
positive for the virus. Yet, he still
refuses to m ake available to these
wom en the drug which might pre­
vent the unborn children from
getting the deadly disease.
U nfortunately, like P resident
M beki, too m any people in the
w oild are living w ith their heads
in the sand w hen it com es to
H IV /A ID S. T oo m any people in
the church, too m any people in
the m osque, too m any people in
public positions, too many people
in schools, too m any people in
prisons, too m any people ev ery ­
w here believe that H IV /A ID S
d o esn ’t im pact them .
HIV/AID S is a totally prevent­
able disease, but the first step
must be acknowledgm ent that the
world and our com m unities are in
a crisis and we can do som ething
about it. T hat w ould be a w on­
derful turn o f events in this new
century and this new millennium.
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A hum anitarian disaster is un­
folding in Afghanistan. The United
N ations estim ates millions of
people are threatened with star­
vation.
W ith the arrival of winter, the
situation is desperate. Thousands
have already perished, and the
w eakest that are most at risk are
the children and the elderly.
Leading international aid orga­
nizations describe a deteriorating
situation.
Food distribution, drastically re­
duced during the bombing, is now
further encum bered by political
instability and general chaos
sweeping the country. Shelter and
supplies are lacking. Banditry, loot­
ing, and factionalism continue to
prevent food delivery, and most
foreign aid workers cannot return
to the country, as their safety
cannot be assured.
As the Interfaith Council of
Greater Portland, we feel compas­
sion for the suffering of innocent
women, men, and children, and see
the moral obligation to meet human
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imminentrisktomillionsofcivilians
must not be treated as incidental to
this conflict.
As leaders of the religious
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people of faith and o f good con­
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supporting aid organizations in
their plea for the creation o f an
international security force to
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government and their allies with
aid organizations is essential for
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relief efforts to be successful.
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I
Workplace Law
Will Save Lives
In ju st a few days, O reg o n ’s new
Sm okefree W orkplace Law goes into
effect.
P assed by the O regon L egislature,
it will protect an additional half-m illion
O regonians from the know n dangers
posed by secondhand tobacco sm oke
in 2002 and beyond.
O regon leads the w ay in the effort to
p ro te c t p e o p le fro m se c o n d h a n d
sm oke. W e jo in W ashington, C alifo r­
nia and M aryland as the only states in
the nation to restrict sm oking in the
w orkplace. W hen it goes into effect
Jan. 1, it is estim ated that 95 percent o f
em ployees across the state w ill be
covered by the new law.
If you are an em ployer in O regon, it
is im portant to learn how easy it is to
com ply. A nd from a larger perspective,
I believe it is an im portant service to
readers to dem onstrate the positive
im pacts on o u r society resulting from
O reg o n ’s new Sm okefree W orkplace
Law.
E lim inating a know n killer, second­
hand tobacco sm oke from the w ork­
place w ill save thousands o f lives and
m illions o f dollars. I appreciate your
help inform ing the public about this
im portant change in state law.
Dr. M el Kohn
Oregon State Epidemiologist