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International News, issue 2
1er décembre 1995 (MAHA)
PARIS, 1 December 1995 (MAHA)
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- Projects funded by the 1994 French AIDS telethon ("Sidathon") which mention migrants explicitly : URACA, prevention in African communities, 96 000 FF, ethnopsychologist position (counselor), 204 000 FF, ethno-medicine meetings, 80 000 FF, accountant, 150 000 FF ; Migrations Santé : AIDS, 12 posters to talk about it, 70 000 FF, training and prevention in the immigrant hostels, 500 000 FF ; Health in Bankoni : AIDS Festival in Mali, 65 000 FF ; Aides Dauphiné-Savoie : AIDS prevention for the Maghrebi population, 100 000 FF ; ARCAT-sida : prevention, counseling and support of HIV+ Muslims, 350 000 FF ; ATF (Association of Tunisians in France) : information and prevention campaign, 100 000 FF ; EGO (Espoir Goutte d’Or) : publications on drug use and AIDS, 200 000 FF ; SOS Racisme : Messengers of Solidarity, 330 000 FF ; Aides Formation : training for Atrios, a Tunisian NGO, 92 800 FF ; Comede, support to PWAs, 280 600 FF ; ACT UP Paris : Monthly on access to care and patient rihts, 247 000 FF ; OPALS : funding for the quarterly journal Sidafrique, 245 000 FF ; Sida Info Service : migrant communities phone line, 250 000 FF. Total : 3.6 million (3.98%) out of 84.4 million French Francs allocated to associations. (Fonds Sidation 1994 : répartition au 1er mars 1995).
- On 1 December 1994, French Prime Minister Edouard Balladur had announced "an immediate and exceptional contribution of 100 million francs" for the fight against AIDS in Third World countries. On 14 October of this year, the Paris daily Libération announced the new government had reneged on this commitment. Among the disappointed : Professor Peter Piot, director of UNAIDS. "Never has a country withdrawn in such a brutal and crass manner," he stated. WHO’s Global Programme against AIDS had co-sponsored the 1994 Paris Summit with the French government. At the time, the daily Le Monde (10 November 1994) had described that Summit’s final declaration as a "pompous catalogue of good intentions".
- For Jacques Lebas of Médecins du Monde, three questions must become political priorities if the fight against AIDS is to be broadened to a fight against "exclusion," a French euphemism for institutionalized societal, political, cultural, and economic inequality. They are : (1) the access to health care of undocumented "foreign residents", especially since the "extinction" of ADMEF (Association for the defense of foreign, sick people in France) ; (2) the "difficulties with supporting African women, especially because the AIDS testing system has gotten ahead of the care system" and "does not take into account family situations" ; and (3) the practical means by which anti-retroviral drugs will be distributed and paid for for the most marginalized. (ARCAT-SIDA Conference, 23 November 1995).
- "In 1985, I was pregnant with my fifth child. I came to Paris. My waters broke in the street. I was taken to the Bouccicaut Hospital. They took a blood sample. I thought it was routine. After delivery, I went home, in the far suburbs, with my baby, Catherine. Ten days later, I received a telegram which told me to call the hospital as soon as possible. I called but nobody would tell me what it was about. So I went. The pediatrician told me they were going to take another blood sample to check for toxoplasmosis. I had doubts. I asked the midwife who had been with me during delivery what test they had done. She answered that, in that maternity hospital, all women of Haitian or African origin were [tested for HIV]. (Estelle, Vous avez la parole, in : Remaides 16, 2nd trimester 1995).
- "In prison, if you’re sick on Monday, you have a chance to see the doctor on Friday." It’s one of the 8 slogans for French AIDES’s new billboard campaign. The goal is to "show the gaps between the declarations, the good intentions, and the daily reality of prevention." A 1994 law put all prisoners on the social security system as soon as they are incarcarated, and the responsibility for their health is explicitly in the hands of prison authorities. In addition, each prison must sign a convention with a hospital and doctors who are not part of the prison system. These doctors are supposed to then oversee all aspects of prisoners’ health care. (Panorama du Médecin, 6 November 1995).
- Tomika Wright, widow of the African-American rapper Easy E, gave birth to a girl baby on 26 September 1995. Easy E, co-founder of the group NWA (Niggaz with Attitude), died of AIDS in March 1995. He had publicly revealed his infection, insisting that he was neither gay nor a drug user. Neither Tomika Wright nor her daughter are HIV positive. (Washington Post, 28 September 1995).
- Magic Johnson and Spike Lee met with Brooklyn Technical High School students on World AIDS Day to discuss AIDS and the role of positive African-American role models. "More than 55% of people with AIDS are people of color," Lee stated. "We have to hammer in that reality." In response to an audience question, Magic Johnson answered that his "T-Cells haven’t changed : Hard as concrete." Lee’s recent film Clockers, features a Black man with AIDS as a mean, cruel murderer. One-third of African-Americans firmly believe that HIV was created in a laboratory to aid in the genocide against Black peoples ; an unknown proportion of American whites are convinced of the "African" origin of the virus. (USA Today, 1 December 1995)
- Is AIDS destined to become a "rite of passage" for U.S. youth ? New statistics published in the magazine Science show one young American in 92 to be infected with HIV. These statistics also show the disproportionate impact of the virus among communities of color. One young African-American in 33 and one Latino in 60 were HIV-positive in 1993. Among young white males, one in 139 were infected. The disproportion is even more striking among women (age 27-39). 1 in 1667 white women compared to 1 in 98 for African-American women. The proportion for Latinas, according to the study, was 1 in 222. These results contradict current optimism about the "stabilization" of the epidemic in the U.S. (Philadelphia Inquirer, 24 November 1995).