August 14, 2006

Abe Janzen, MCC Alberta Executive Director

We started today attending a rally across the back alley from the CBC in Toronto - for Women’s and Girls’ Rights amid the AIDS epidemic. Lots of people showed up… Stephen Lewis and Mary Robinson were two of the speakers and then they marched, or walked rather, to the Conference making lots of noise for about 3 blocks. We marched with them. The huge and disproportionate problem that AIDS is for women and young girls is front and centre of this Conference so far. Good thing… some very powerful speeches today.

The first session included 4 major speakers. There were at least 7,000-8,000 people there. Two scientists spoke about all kinds of very medical, scientific material that is obviously very important in the research field. Then an Indian scientist spoke very eloquently about the social challenges of AIDS. He hammered at the way the USA and the multi-national drug companies sacrifice lives all over the world by covertly pushing developing world countries into agreements with the companies that are not in the best interests of the countries. He was of the opinion that the USA government is very complicit in all this. The Louis Binder spoke… she ran out of time since she was the last speaker… and she would not step down even though the chair asked her several times… and the crowd supported her until the chair gave her another minute to finish. She has nothing to lose. She was very passionate.

Session two. Bill Gates and Bill Clinton had an hour and a half to answer questions about the work they do around the world. They are good at this. Clinton pushes for systems, organizations… he says that poor countries would not be losing their own professionals if we helped them build systems that could better support the work they want to be doing. For sure. He is also very strong on all of us “rowing together”. That is a strong Conference theme as well… that no one will do much good with AIDS work if we try to “row our own boat”, as Clinton says. Gates says the main work for North Americans is still in fund raising. Clinton still thinks the ABCs (Abstinence, Being Faithful, and Condom use) have done more good than harm in fighting AIDS. But the tone of most presentations here has been that the ABC approach mostly disadvantages women. It is the woman who will be faithful, who will abstain from other men. It is the man who will not, and the man will also not use a condom. So, it is easy for the US Government to make the ABC approach a requirement of any funding, but many speakers here say that the approach is directly contributing to the deaths of thousands of girls and young women. Interesting debate.

I attended a meeting in the afternoon where Haiti was the main focus. In another session they talked about Brazil and China - two countries who get very high marks for government leadership in fighting AIDS. They have taken the problem and fully engaged it, apparently, with long term funding and planning. Clinton says that China, up until very recently, was in denial, and then after a set of meetings, including one with Clinton, turned on a dime and began immediately to make plans and to implement them. The light went on with someone.

Another major theme developing is the need to work much harder at testing, and counseling along with the testing. But also, as Clinton says, you cannot test people, find them positive, and then have no ARVs with which to treat them. He implied that ARVs are even more urgent than nutrition, though he also agrees that agricultural development work is critical to make food security even remotely possible for so many AIDS affected people. Testing is way more controversial than I had imagined. A bunch of excellent speakers from Botswana and South Africa today all agreed that testing is critical, but all also agreed that you can’t just test people, tell them they are infected with HIV, and send them home. And it’s even worse if the victim is a young person or a mother.

The conference is giant. It is tiring to think of all the stuff one could be taking in and knowing we are touching a very small fraction of it all. Hundreds of agencies and government reps and displays are here.