Students Lobby Kerry for AIDS Funds

BOSTON—Over 30 members of the Students Global AIDS Campaign (SGAC) trekked through slush and snow yesterday to the Boston office of Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) to demand that Kerry include no less than $2.5 billion in funding to fight global AIDS in upcoming AIDS legislation.

Kerry and Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) plan to introduce legislation for a U.S. contribution to the Global Fund, a U.N.-sponsored project that aims to raise $10 billion to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

Though Kerry has not yet determined a suggested appropriation, protesters argued that America should provide at least 25 percent of the funding because the U.S. makes up 25 percent of the world’s GDP.

“Sen. Kerry now has the opportunity to make battling this pandemic a U.S. priority,” said SGAC member Danae McElroy, who is a junior at Wellesley College.

“Under-funding the fight against HIV [and] AIDS would be tantamount to destroying the millions of lives that could be saved,” McElroy said.

After meeting at the John Harvard statue in the early afternoon, the group learned the “Toi-Toi” dance, which SGAC co-founder Benjamin M. Wikler ’03 said is “a South African anti-apartheid dance that is now used in the fight against global AIDS.”

The protesters then proceeded to Kerry’s office, where four of them delivered a letter expressing their concerns and were allowed in to meet with one of Kerry’s senior aides, Roger Fiske.

While waiting in the building’s lobby, the remaining SGAC members jammed the phone lines at Kerry’s Washington office with calls demanding $2.5 billion to fight global AIDS.

In the meeting with Kerry staffers, McElroy said any appropriation less than $2.5 billion would be “far too low.”

Kerry spokesperson Kelly Benander said the senator was still in the process of developing the legislation.

“There aren’t any numbers yet,” Benander said. “We don’t want to give any ballpark figures that might keep the bill from moving forward.”

A crowd of 50 protesters—chanting “Too few dollars, too many deaths”—met Fiske and the SGAC members in the lobby after the meeting, where Fiske addressed the group.

“When you look at the landscape of Congress, you have to accept that you’re not going to get everything you want,” Fiske said, according to Wikler.

Wikler disagreed, arguing Kerry has the potential to suggest a higher number and still receive support.

“When we visited the offices of 45 members of Congress in D.C. last week, congressional staffers kept saying that they would support whatever number Kerry proposed,” Wikler said.

SGAC officer Amanda S. Alexander ’04 said Kerry’s staff “seemed very receptive but kept reiterating that they were in a very tight spot.”

Wikler said Kerry’s role as a leader in the fight against AIDS was in question.

“If Kerry doesn’t put $2.5 billion into this legislation, he’s not going to be the global AIDS leader anymore,” he said.

Some students said they were motivated to protest by personal experience with AIDS in foreign countries.

Damian T. Wint ’05 said a trip he took to South Africa underscored the horrors of the disease.

“In Durban, one in three people die of AIDS,” Wint said. “In the most hard-hit area, where I went, it’s more like half.”