AIDS FOCUS WILL WANE QUICKLY

Only a handful of protestors greeted former U.S. president Bill
Clinton when he spoke earlier this week at the 16th International
AIDS Conference in Toronto. They quietly raised white lab coats on
poles to protest the lack of nurses to treat AIDS victims in the
developing world.

Clinton laughed and told them he was in total agreement.

Protestors have been part of every international AIDS conference. But
their tactics and their style have changed dramatically since the
first conference was held in Atlanta in 1985.

Back then, there were no known treatments for the mysterious disease,
only a growing fear and demands for more compulsory testing.

By 1987, hundreds of members of ACT UP (the AIDS Coalition to Unleash
Power), comprised largely of gay men, demonstrated at the Washington
conference to protest calls for even more widespread HIV testing
while promising treatments were being held up in lengthy clinical trials.

They were arrested by police wearing bright yellow rubber gloves to
supposedly protect themselves. The pictures were shown around the
world, reinforcing the public's fear and ignorance.

By 1990, the demonstrations had grown even bigger as activists
protested the U.S. policy of banning HIV-infected individuals from
immigrating or even travelling to the U.S.

Activism may have died down as an art form, but some things have not
changed very much.

That U.S. ban on allowing HIV-infected people to immigrate is still
in effect. No international AIDS conference has been held in the
country since 1990 in protest against the ban.

The 1993 conference highlighted the growing tensions between
resource-poor countries and the developed world, and pharmaceutical
companies' reluctance to give up their patent control of life-saving drugs.

But those tensions still persist and are actually becoming worse.

As new combination therapies became available in the mid-'90s that
extended the lives of people with HIV/AIDS, the disease became less
of an issue primarily for gay men in the developed world. Instead,
the focus shifted to the unfolding devastation caused by the disease
in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe, where those drugs
are still largely unavailable.

The 2000 AIDS conference in Durban, South Africa, marked the first
time the conference was hosted by an African country. The theme,
"Break the Silence," underscored how fear, stigma and denial about
HIV/AIDS continued to hinder prevention and care efforts and
highlighted the growing rate of infection among women.

Six years later in Toronto, those same stigmas, fears, prejudices and
denials haunt the current AIDS conference.

U.S. funds for AIDS decree that 30 per cent of the money must go to
abstinence programs, a policy that has been proven not to work on its own.

"When you have people pontificating about abstinence, I don't think
they know what too many women in the world are up against," Clinton said.

The U.S. also requires that all countries receiving its AIDS funds
and wanting to use the money to treat sex workers must declare their
opposition to prostitution publicly, even though it is the only way
women in many parts of the world survive financially.

At the same time, needle exchange programs, which have been proven to
save lives and reduce the risk of HIV infection, are still controversial.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said he does not want the only
Canadian program now in existence, located in Vancouver, to have its
legal exemption renewed when it expires in September.

Yet one in 10 new cases of HIV and 30 per cent of all new cases
outside Africa are caused by sharing needles.

Clearly there is ongoing stubbornness surrounding AIDS. Some 90 per
cent of people with HIV still refuse to be tested; men in many
countries still refuse to wear condoms and women are ostracized for
getting the disease because of it.

But there is cause for hope.

New treatments lie on the horizon, more drugs are getting to the
Third World, more money is flowing.

The international AIDS conference in Toronto is "a wonderful advocacy
opportunity, a chance for the world to focus on the international
AIDS epidemic," said Helene Gayle, its co-chair and president of CARE.

But too often that focus stops as quickly as it began when the
conference ends and the western world moves on to other issues.

In the early days of these international conferences, AIDS was a
focus year-round because it was killing people we knew. Now, it is a
once-every-two-years event, quickly put out of mind by most of us at
the end of the week.

Maybe a few more protests would help change that.

Elaine Carey is a member of the Star's editorial board.