Global Struggle

Youth AIDS Day 2007: SGAC Focuses on the Chains Holding Down People with AIDS

On Youth AIDS Day, February 26th, members of the Student Global AIDS Campaign (SGAC), along with other youth and student AIDS activists around the country, held dozens of actions across the country - kicking off Monday, Youth AIDS Day, and extending throughout the week. Demonstrations and events took place across Massachusetts, Vermont, Washington DC, New York, Washington, Illinois, Maryland, Ohio, Connecticut, Georgia, North Carolina, and Oregon. Activists demanded immediate change in the corporate pharmaceutical structure and International Monetary Fund policy that prevent access to comprehensive services to people living with HIV/AIDS. As part of their call for Universal Treatment Access by 2010, students demanded that Abbott Laboratories make their life-saving AIDS drug Kaletra available and affordable to all who need it, as well as called on Congress to support the African Health Capacity Investment Act of 2007 to address the dire shortage of healthcare workers in the Global South (defined as most of Africa, Asia and Latin America).

Among the dozens of actions, students in Chicago visited Chicago-based Abbott Laboratories with large eyeballs, representing that activists are watching Abbott and their policies. They demanded that Abbott:

1) Establish affordable prices for Kaletra in low- and middle-income countries, including many in Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, and Eastern Europe

2) Offer open and voluntary licenses for the production of generic Kaletra

3) Immediately register Kaletra throughout all of Abbott's expanded Access countries

4) Make available a pediatric form of new Kaletra throughout the Global South

Anuja Singh, a member of SGAC and student at Columbia University said, "Where is Abbott's Kaletra? Abbott is in possession of life-saving medication - but the people who need it do not have it. We want them to know that we are watching their actions, and will continue to pressure them until their policies change." At Willamette University in Oregon, students dressed in medical scrubs and bound by IMF handcuffs, we delivered letters to their members of Congress demanding support of the African Health Capacity Investment Act - a bill that represents an important response in strengthening health capacity in sub-Saharan Africa. Students called for $8 billion dollar over the next 5 years, with $650 for the fiscal year 2008.

Additionally, the students asked that Congress address the role of damaging IMF policies in the build-up of national health systems. The Congress should instruct the US representatives to the International Monetary Fund to vote no on any loan agreement that does not specifically exempt health and education spending from sector budget ceilings.

"This Youth AIDS Day, youth are taking action on these issues that directly impact people living with AIDS because those in power have yet to choose people over profits. We will continue to respond relentlessly to their harmful actions," said Erin Burns, National Student Coordinator of SGAC.