HIV AIDS Resource Guide/HIV-AIDS Resource Guide.iso/STAT/NEWS/AIDSDAY.ASC

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/* The President's World Aids Day Proclomation follows, together
with his comments at Georgetown Medical Center on that date. */

 THE WHITE HOUSE

 Office of the Press Secretary

 _______________________________________________________________

 For Immediate Release December 1, 1993

 WORLD AIDS DAY, 1993

 - - - - - - -

 BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

 A PROCLAMATION

 AIDS and HIV disease have cut short the lives of many Americans
who had so much to contribute. They have plagued our sons and
daughters, our mothers and fathers, our brothers and sisters, and
our friends and co-workers. The devastating effects of AIDS have
touched all of us. More than one million of our fellow citizens
are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Since January
1981, more than 340,000 Americans have developed AIDS, and more
than 200,000 have died from complications resulting from AIDS.

 On this World AIDS Day, we recognize and are humbled by the
global impact of HIV disease. The World Health Organization
estimates that more than 14 million people worldwide are infected
with HIV and that more than 2.5 million have developed AIDS. By
the end of this century, more than 30 million people will have
been infected with HIV and, of those, more than 10 million adults
will have developed AIDS.

 The extent of HIV infection is overwhelming, but we must not
allow ourselves to despair in the face of these daunting
statistics. Instead, we must accelerate our efforts to find
effective treatments, a vaccine, and an eventual cure for this
scourge that haunts us.

 This Administration has undertaken a new commitment to AIDS
research and prevention and to the development of improved care
and treatment for those with HIV disease. Through the
strengthened Office of AIDS Research at the National Institutes
of Health, we are increasing our efforts to improve treatments
and working more effectively to find a cure for HIV and AIDS.

 State governments and public health officials across our Nation
have mobilized to educate the public and address the needs, not
only of persons with AIDS, but also of their families and loved
ones. Community-based organizations throughout the country have
provided education, care programs, and support to those coping
with HIV and their families. Volunteers across America, members
of local service organizations, church groups, gay and lesbian
service organizations, and thousands of individuals have heard
the summons to action and have given selflessly of their time and
energy. Those who labor to hasten the end of this terrible
epidemic deserve our deep appreciation and admiration.

 Education is our most effective tool in preventing the spread of
HIV/AIDS. We need to ensure that all Americans will protect their
lives and the lives of their loved ones by making safe and
healthy choices. Government alone cannot solve this crisis. We
all must look deep within our souls to find he compassion, the
values, the spirit, and the commitment that will allow us to
conquer this modern-day plague.

 I call upon every American to join in the effort to fight the
spread of HIV and to treat those living with HIV with dignity and
respect. We all hope and pray for the day when we discover a cure
and a preventive vaccine. Until that day -- which I know will
come -- we all must work together, strengthen our resolve to
marshal the resources necessary to end the epidemic, and increase
our compassion for those who need our help in their struggle
against HIV disease.

 NOW, THEREFORE, I, WILLIAM J. CLINTON, President of the United
States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the
Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim
December 1, 1993, as World AIDS Day, and I invite the Governors
of the States, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, officials of
other territories subject to the jurisdiction of the United
States, and the American people to join me in reaffirming our
commitment to combatting HIV/AIDS and to helping those living
with this disease.

 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirtieth
day of November, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and
ninety-three, and of the Independence of the United States of
America the two hundred and eighteenth.



 WILLIAM J. CLINTON



THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

_________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release    December 1, 1993

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AT WORLD AIDS DAY EVENT

Georgetown University Medical Center Washington, DC

11:50 A.M. EST

     THE PRESIDENT: Now, there's a guy I'd like to vote for.
(Laughter.) Thank you so much, Alexander, for what you said and
the way you said it and for the power of your example. Father
O'Donovon, Dr. Griffith, Kristine Gebbie, ladies and gentlemen,
I'm delighted to see all of you here. I thank my friend,
Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton for coming.

     I want to especially thank all of you here who are devoting
your time and indeed your lives for the quest for a better way to
deal with AIDS, and of course we hope, ultimately, a cure. I want
to thank especially the people who are living with AIDS who met
with me today in their hospital rooms and who walked the
corridors of the hospital with me. I won't mention them all, but
I met a remarkable man named Larry Singletary upstairs who was a
real inspiration to me. (Applause.) And I met his grandmother who
was a real inspiration to both of us. And a beautiful young woman
named Jenny Dorr who walked the halls with me, who came down with
me. Stand up, Jenny. (Applause.) I think my goal ought to be to
see that Jenny Dorr gets to live to a ripe old age. (Applause.)

     Today I think just about every American who's ever been
touched by AIDS will think of people they know who have died or
who have suffered family loss. I don't know if it was by accident
or design, but I want to thank whoever put this part of the quilt
up here with a picture of my good friend, Dan Bradley, who for
many years was the national leader of the Legal Services
Corporation. I have a friend who lost her mother and another
friend who lost his wife to AIDS because of tainted blood
transfusions; and many others.

     But I want to say a special word of appreciation today for
the people who are infected with HIV and the people who are
living with AIDS who are committed to living; to those who work
in the White House and those who work in the administration and
those who, around the country, have given support to me and
helped me to give some support to them. Some of them are here
today. And I thank them for the power of their example and for
their commitment to life.

     In a funny way this whole disease is bringing out the best
and the worst in America, isn't it? I mean, it's exposing some of
our prejudice in ways that are self-defeating since every family
and every child is now at risk. And yet it's also showing us the
courage, the self-determination, the incredible capacity of the
American people to give and to love. We see our legendary refusal
to adopt organized and disciplined solutions to big social
problems. And yet we also see, as I will document in a moment, a
remarkable willingness on the part of people who can make a
difference to try to do more.

     On Monday I met with several religious leaders who are
responding in their own way to the AIDS crisis; people who are
largely involved in caring for people with AIDS, many of whom are
also involved courageously for them in trying to educate our
children in the schools to prevent AIDS.

     And I was impressed with the wide variety of religious
perspectives. We had conservative evangelicals around the
breakfast table with the liberal rabbis, mainstream Protestant
ministers, Catholic clergy. Every one of them, however, agreed on
at least two things: One is that it is the moral high ground for
people of faith to care for people with AIDS; and the moral low
ground to run away from it.

     And the second thing, and perhaps even more important over
the long run, is that it is not only ethical conduct, but an
ethical obligation to speak openly with people, especially young
people, about what they must do and not do in order to avoid
becoming infected.

     There was a Methodist bishop, Fritz Mutti, Topeka, Kansas,
who lost two of his sons to AIDS -- two -- who spoke about these
obligations. He talked about how he and his wife had worked
against their own fear and loneliness to bring out their personal
experience in a way that would give power to their efforts do
deal with the crisis before us.

     I met Reverend Steve Pieters, who has been living with AIDS
for more than a decade now, one of America's longest survivors,
explaining how he stays alive through hope and through his own
faith.

     For nearly every American with eyes and ears open, the face
of AIDS is no longer the face of a stranger. Millions and
millions of us have now stood at the bedside of a dying friend,
and grieved. Millions and millions of us now know people who have
had AIDS and who have died of it who are both gay and
heterosexual -- both. Millions and millions of us are now forced
to admit that this is a problem which has diminished the life of
every American.

     And as I enter this battle next year to try to provide for
the first time in this history of this country affordable and
quality health benefits for all Americans, millions and millions
of us know that one of the reasons we have such an expensive
health care system, even though it doesn't do as much in terms of
coverages, any other major country's health care system, is that
we pay a terrible price for the rate of AIDS that we have in this
country and the cost that it imposed because we don't do more on
the front end.

     On Sunday, the cover story in The New York Times Sunday
Magazine was written by a journalist named Jeffrey Schmalz, who
lived, and just a couple of weeks ago, died with AIDS. He was a
remarkable man who interviewed me in a very piercing way when I
was running for president. I was impressed then with the totally
frank, almost brutal and unsentimental nature of the interview in
which we engaged -- (laughter) -- and with the quality of his
mind and spirit and the precision of his questions.

     If you saw the article or you heard about it, you know that
basically what the article said was AIDS is sort of receding in
the public consciousness as a thing to be passionate about; that
it was true not only in our administration, but in the community
at large and even in the gay community. That was the theory of
the article. And I think he was saying that it was -- people were
just frustrated dealing with what they considered to be a
perpetually uphill battle. Not that it was politically
unacceptable anymore to talk about AIDS or deal with it, but that
there just seemed to be no pay-off. And so he said -- he
challenged us all with these words in the article: "I am dying.
Why doesn't someone help us?"

     I have to say to you that I think that is a good question
and a good challenge. I do believe that all of us, each in our
own way, sometimes just want to go on to other things. Even some
of my friends who are infected just want to go on to other things
--

maybe especially them. They just get sick of talking about it and
thinking about it and focusing on it.

     The purpose of this day is to remind us that our attitudes,
behavior and passion should be revved up in the other 364 days of
the year.

     (Audience Interruption.)

     THE PRESIDENT: It's okay. It's all right. (Applause.) It's
all right.

     Last night -- let me change the subject a minute and get
back to it. Last night I went to see Schindler's List. We had a
special showing of it for the Holocaust Museum. And it's not
going to be a highly advertised movie and it's coming out around
Christmastime. It will be tough for people to see this. I implore
every one of you to go see it. It is an astonishing thing.

     Schindler's List -- it's about a non-Jew who, as a member of
the Nazi Party, saved over 1,000 Jews by his personal efforts in
World War II from the Holocaust. The reason I say that is this:
Part of my job is to be a lightening rod. Part of my job is to
lift the hopes and aspirations of the American people, knowing
that as long as you're trying to lift hopes and lift aspirations
you can never fully close the gap between what you're reaching
for and what you're actually doing; and knowing for sure that
there's no way I can now keep everybody alive who already has
AIDS. So the fact that he's in here expressing his frustration to
me means at least that they expect me to do something, which is a
step forward. (Applause.) I don't take it personally. (Applause.)

     The reason I ask you to go see the movie is you will see
portrait after portrait after portrait of the painful difference
between people who have no hope and have no rage left and people
who still have hope and still have rage. I'd rather that man be
in here screaming at me than having given up altogether. Much
rather. (Applause.)

     So let me go forward and tell you what we're trying to do
and let me then invite you to tell me what else we should do;
because that's really what I came here to do today -- to say,
here's what we have done in a year and to invite you to tell me
what else we should do.

     I think, first of all, it's clear that this administration
has made a significant financial effort, as the Schmalz article
pointed out in The New York Times. We've increased programs for
prevention by $45 million, a very substantial increase. What we
still need to do is to convince people who do the preventing that
they ought to do it where the people are who need the
information. We must, we must, we must convince more people to
reach the children where the children are in the schools.
(Applause.) And where the adults are in the workplace.

     I have directed every federal office to provide its
employees with education about AIDS prevention. We asked the 3
million federal employees to take the information home to their
families and to their communities. I have challenged every
business to take similar action; but not every business, and
certainly not every school is doing it.

     We can deny the reality that every family is at risk until
we know someone who is, but we do so at great peril to ourselves.
We've increased the research funding for AIDS by over 20 percent;
and we increased funding in the Ryan White Health Care Act for
care by 66 percent. And I want to remind you that this was at a
time when overall domestic spending was held absolutely flat; and

went over 350 items in the federal budget this year are smaller
than they were last year -- where there was an absolute cut -- we
got substantial increases. Why? Because again, I say this shows
the best and the worst about the country, a reluctance to deal
with the problem; the absence of a systematic approach at every
community level; but the understanding in Congress that even
though we've got to slash a lot of the funding we have for
various programs to reduce the deficit, we had to do more here.
And I frankly think the Congress deserves a lot of credit for
doing it at a very difficult time when many people said that the
politically smart thing was to cut everything no matter what, and
no matter what the consequences. So I feel good about that. And I
think you should feel good about that.

     We do have a National AIDS Policy Coordinator. We do have an
effort going now that we announced yesterday to see what we can
do to slash the rules and the regulations and the bureaucracy to
move drugs to people more quickly, to see what will work and what
will help. And that is terribly important.

     We are marshalling more resources and making more efforts.
But there must be other things we can do. The theme of the World
AIDS Day is "Time to Act." The argument that Jeffrey $Schmaltz
made in his article was that we also ought to talk more. And for
those of us in positions of leadership, talking is acting.

     I have to tell you that one of the things that I
underestimated when I became President was the actual power of
the words coming from the bully pulpit of the White House to move
the country. I overestimated my capacity to get things done in a
hurry in the Congress -- (laughter) -- but I -- when I read the
other day in The Los Angeles Times that I had the best record of
any President in 40 years, I said, "pity the others." (Laughter.)
I'm an impatient person; I'm a victim of my own impatience. But I
do think sometimes all of us underestimate the power of our words
to change the attitudes and the range of behavior of other people
-- not just me, but you, too.

     And it is clear to me that no matter how much we put into
research, no matter how much we put into treatment, no matter how
much we put into education, someone besides the politicians will
do the research, the treatment and the education. And it has to
be a daily thing.

     The next thing I'd like to say is, I think the best thing we
can do for people who are living with HIV and living with AIDS is
to pass a comprehensive health care plan so that people do not
lose their benefits. (Applause.) That is important -- and let me
say that is important for two reasons. One is obvious. One is
what I saw in the hospital rooms up there when I asked people,
you know, or they had already prepared to tell me: How is your
care being paid for? Where do you live? Do you still have a place
to live? Do you have a job to go back to if you get well enough
to go back? What is the circumstance of your life.

     The first thing is just simply having the security of
knowing that there will be a payment stream to cover quality
care. But the second thing, I think, is also important. And that
is the point I began this talk with, which is that we have to
affirm the lives of people who are infected and the living. And
if you know that you have health insurance that can never be
taken away and that the cost of it will not vary because you will
be insured in a big community pool with people who are not
infected and therefore whose real costs are lower. Then there is
never an incentive for someone to fire you or not to hire you.
That is important. That's a big part of therapy in any kind of
problem -- being able to live to the fullest of your God-given
capacities -- to work, to go, to do.

     And it would be good for the economy, by the way, to know
that nobody had to be put off to the side or there were no
incentives not to maximize the capacity of every person who lives
in the country -- so that this health care issue -- the providing
the security -- is not just important for having the funding
stream for the health care, it's also important to make sure that
we are liberating the potential of people who want to work and
contribute for as long as they can. It is a huge deal.

     And I hope when we begin this debate in earnest next year
that those of you who work in this area, either in the care of
people with AIDS or those of you who are part of the activist
community, will make sure that both those points get made to the
United States Congress. We have too many people in this country
with a contribution to make to the rest of us and to the whole,
dying to make it, who can't because of the crazy quilt health
system we've got. (Applause.) And I think we should do it.

     Finally, let me just say that there is a lot of talk always,
and I have been part of this, talking about how each of us has to
take personal responsibility for our own conduct. And I believe
that. But if you want children to do that, they have to be
educated as to the consequences of their conduct. Which means
someone else has to do it. And it is also true that since
literally every American can be affected in some way by this, all
the rest of us have personal responsibilities, too. And so again
I say to you, I think we have done a good job in the first year
of this administration if you measure good job in terms of
organizing ourselves properly, funding the effort more
adequately, identifying some of the major problems in the
bureaucracy and going after them.

     But Jeffrey Schmalz, in his last article, issued a rebuke to
me. He said, you cannot let this slide as an issue until it is
over. And he was right. But he also issued a rebuke to everyone
else in the country -- everyone else. This is an issue. If you
just look at the sheer numbers; if you look at what is happening
in some African countries; if you look at what is happening in
other nations around the world; if you had no other concern in
your own country but the cold-blooded one of how your own country
was going to pay for its collective health care need and deal
with its economic crises -- if that was your only concern, if you
never had a heartbeat of compassion, you would have to be nearly
obsessed with this problem.

     And so I say to you, my fellow Americans, tonight when I go
home, I will see the face of Alexander. And I will wish that
someday he will be able to give that speech on his own behalf. He
deserves that chance. I will see the face of Jenny, and I will
want her to live to a ripe old age. And all of us -- all of us
have something we can do. I invite you to tell me what else you
think I can do, and to ask yourselves what else you can do.

     Thank you very much. (Applause.)

     END12:17 P.M. EST