Between World AIDS Day (December 1) and International Human Rights Day (December 10), PHR is launching the 10,000 in 10 Campaign. We’re mobilizing 10,000 Americans, including students nationwide, to ask their US Senators to support US ratification of the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 2010.
We need your help to meet our goal. It will take 2 minutes:
Get More Involved: Join our “10,000 in 10 Leadership Team” and make a pledge to collect 50 signatures from family, friends and colleagues. Email me at skalloch[at]phrusa[dot]org to join the team.
Why CEDAW?
Women all over the world are facing discrimination, abuse and systematic inequities that make them especially vulnerable to some of the most severe global health challenges. Until we promote and protect women’s rights, the most severe diseases and health complications will continue to disproportionately affect women world wide.
Why Now?
The US remains one of only 7 countries in the world who have yet to ratify this critical treaty, along with Sudan and Somalia.
Since the treaty was adopted by United Nations in 1979, efforts for US ratification have come up repeatedly in the Senate but faced significant obstacles by CEDAW opponents, crushing potential for ratification. Now, CEDAW has strong support within the Foreign Relations Committee and is listed by the Obama administration as one of the top three treaties to ratify.
Things are looking a lot brighter: Let’s make the most of this new opportunity to protect women’s rights and support women’s health worldwide by finally ratifying CEDAW!
I just returned from an inspiring ANAC conference (Association of Nurses in AIDS Care). It is always fun, fabulous and totally energizing to be around ANAC members, who are deeply committed to stopping AIDS, supporting people living with AIDS and building an amazing community of caregivers, educators and advocates.
Former PHR Health Action AIDS Campaign Director Pat Daoust was honored with one of ANAC’s most prestigious awards, the Public Serive Award, for her three decades in AIDS care and her amazing advocacy work through Health Action AIDS. Her acceptance speech is below. In it she thanks all of you, the campaign’s supporters, for your deep commitme
nt to stopping AIDS. Read and be inspired!
First of all, thank you very much. I am extremely humbled and honored by this recognition, especially because it comes from this organization — ANAC — my fellow nurses.
When I received word that I would be the recipient of the Public Service Award, the letter noted that this is in large part an acknowledgment of the work accomplished as Director of the Health Action AIDS Campaign while at PHR. While I am extremely proud of the campaigns’ successes, I am the first to emphasize that without our coalition partners and the commitment of our members — particularly the thousands of nurses both here in the US and abroad — we would never been able to reach our goals!
Wen we called upon you to write or sign on to letters to members of congress calling for the repeal of the HIV travel ban.
When we asked you to set up in-district meeting with your representatives to help educate them on the importance of women’s rights and the need to integrate FP and reproductive health care with HIV service.
Whenever we held summits or organized hill meetings to advocate for US investment in health systems and health workers in the developing world.
Whenever we urged op-eds or LTEs that addressed human rights or the right to health for the most vulnerable including IDUs , MSN or women and children at risk for HIV.
You never let us down. You always rallied above and beyond.
The powerful voice of the nurse truly made a significant impact. The wins for AIDS, human rights and global health could never have happened with out the expertise, the dedication, the passion and the commitment of the largest group of health professional in the world. NURSES!!!
Our size as a profession — comprising close to 80% of all health professionals in the world — gives us power but also holds us responsible, obligates us to be advocates for those who voices are not hear. Our work is not done: appropriations for PEFAR and global health is still an unknown and with 70% of those in need of treatment lacking access and infection rates continuing to grown we have to keep our mission on the front pages and at the top of the USG agenda.
In closing I want to acknowledge and thank Deb von Z for nominating me for this award, the ANAC board for approving the nomination, my mentor Larry Kessler, the founder of the AIDS Action Committee in Mass, who first taught me about advocacy and the entire HAA team at PHR and, last, my biggest supporter, my husband Paul, who for years has put up with my international travel, my long absences and my obsessive behavior. He has never once complained.
Homeland Security official Beth Gibson tried to put a kinder face on immigration detention health care in a November 9 talk to health professionals at the American Public Health Association annual meeting in Philadelphia. Instead of making detention center health staff pre-clear, and therefore pre-justify, every medical procedure that is referred to health professionals outside the prison walls, Homeland Security policy under consideration, according to Gibson, would devise a list of treatments that are “pre-approved.” Only more unusual services — such as CAT scans — would require special advance approval.
This is welcome news from Ms. Gibson, who, as Senior Councilor to the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security John Morton, surely appreciates the human costs of unjustified delays in detention health care that have been reported in the press and by human rights groups.
Still, the policy doesn’t go far enough in the opinion of a number of health professionals who attended the APHA session, chaired by detention health expert Homer Venters, MD, at which Ms. Gibson spoke. One participant called for health professionals to support comprehensive immigration reform, which would decrease the number of persons in the US who are amenable to detention in the first place. Leaders in the Jail and Prison interest group of APHA also called on health professionals to become much more involved in supporting reforms to immigration detention policy.
Today marks a victory for PHR and all of you who have been working to lift the US HIV travel ban. This morning, while signing the fourth reauthorization of the Ryan White CARE Act, President Obama vowed to “publish a final rule that eliminates the travel ban effective just after the New Year.”
Twenty-two years ago in a decision rooted in fear rather than fact, the United States instituted a travel ban on entry into the country for people living with HIV/AIDS. Now, we talk about reducing the stigma of this disease — yet we’ve treated a visitor living with it as a threat. We lead the world when it comes to helping stem the AIDS pandemic — yet we are one of only a dozen countries that still bar people from HIV from entering our own country. If we want to be the global leader in combating HIV/AIDS, we need to act like it.
The final rule will remove the HIV infection from the list of “communicable disease of public health significance,” no longer require HIV testing as part of the US immigration screening process and eliminate the need for a waiver to enter the country as an HIV carrier.
Please read Obama’s statement, his first public address about HIV/AIDS where he illustrates his commitment to make the United States a global leader in tackling HIV/AIDS and erasing its stigma. Also check out PHR’s press release on this important victory.
Said PHR CEO Frank Donaghue:
Today is a great day for human rights and for people living with AIDS, their friends and their families. The HIV Travel Ban made the United States a pariah in human rights circles, and harmed our reputation as a world leader of HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care. Starting in 2010, people living with HIV will no longer be prevented from entering this country, no longer turned away at customs, no longer forced to hide their condition and interrupt medical treatment, and no longer be treated by our government with contempt.
We’re celebrating in Cambridge and DC; we hope you are too. This is an amazing victory for all of you who have worked so hard to promote and protect the human rights of people living with AIDS!
PHR will be at the American Public Health Association (APHA) Annual Meeting in Philadelphia Nov 7-11th. We hope to see you there! Here are the things we’ll be doing:
PHR will have a booth all week at the APHA Exposition — do come by and see us!
PHR will host a Health and Human Rights Reception on Monday November 9 from 6:30-8:00 p.m. at the Philadelphia Marriott (1201 Market St, Room 403). Everyone is welcome to attend, and bring friends and colleagues — the reception is free and open to all. We’ll have drinks and appetizers and plenty of mixing and mingling. We look forward to seeing longtime PHR members — and new faces!
We are also co-sponsoring the Annual Health Activist Dinner, the evening before our reception — Sunday November 8 from 6-9 p.m. at Ocean Harbor Restaurant, 3 blocks from the Convention Center. One of the award winners is GHAC advisor and doctor-activist extraordinaire Mardge Cohen. Please join PHR and the human rights and medical community in celebrating her achievements and those of all health activists like you. See more details below.
PHR staff will also be presenting on various panels throughout the week:
Successful International Experiences in Advocacy: Monday, November 9, 2009: 8:30 a.m. (two panel presentations on HAA and Colleagues at Risk)
Reproductive Health Poster Session: Tuesday, November 10, 2009: 4:30 p.m. (two poster presentations on sexual violence in Chad and on integration of HIV/AIDS and family planning services)
War and Public Health: Monday, November 9, 2009: 12:30 p.m. (presentation on Afghan mass graves)
Water Rights and Water Fights: Resolving Conflicts Before They Boil Over: Tuesday November 10, 2009: 10:30 a.m. (presentation on water and war crimes)
If you’re coming to APHA, please email me at skalloch [at] phrusa [dot] org — we’d love to meet up with you during the week. And if you are presenting, let me know, and we will add your event to the list of things to do at APHA!
Annual Health Activist Dinner
Sunday, Nov 8th, 6:00 – 9:00 pm
This Year’s Barsky Award recipient: Dr. Mardge Cohen, Women’s Equity in Access to Care and Treatment (WE-ACTx)
This Year’s Cornely Award recipient: Dr. Josh Sharfstein, Principal Deputy Commissioner of the FDA
This Year’s Wellstone Award recipient: Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY); Co-Chair, HR 676 Coalition
This Year’s Activist Student Recognition: TBA
Ocean Harbor Restaurant, 1023 Race St
(3 blocks from the Convention Center at 1101 Arch St.)
View Larger Map
$45 in advance, $50 at the meeting
RSVP Today!
Make Checks Payable to:
OHSI – Activist Dinner
Occupational Health Services Institute UIC Medical Center (MC684)
835 S. Wolcott Street, Chicago, IL 60612
Phone: 312-996-5804, Fax 312-413-8485
For more information: porris [at] uic [dot] edu
AFSCME, American Medical Student Association, Committee of Interns and Residents/SEIU Healthcare, Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO, Doctors for Global Health, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Physicians for Human Rights, Physicians for a National Health Program, Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health, Physicians for Social Responsibility, The Physicians Forum, Doctors Council SEIU
During his campaign, President Obama promised to end the ban on federal funding for syringe exchange programs.
Call President Obama TODAY at (202) 456-1414 or (202) 456-1111 and tell him to keep his promise to save lives.
This summer, the House of Representatives took a historic step by removing the ban on federal funding for needle and syringe exchange programs (SEPs). Now, the Senate must act, but they are not making this policy a priority.
Senators need to hear from President Obama that his Administration supports syringe exchange. Now is the time to urge President Obama to fulfill his campaign promise to end the ban and to urge the Senate to act.
SEPs promote health and human rights. More than a dozen scientific reviews of SEPs have shown that when implemented as part of a comprehensive HIV/AIDS prevention strategy, SEPs help reduce HIV transmissions without increasing drug use.
Indeed, SEPs do more than provide clean syringes and properly dispose of used ones; they link people into the health care system and drug treatment programs that save lives.
President Obama’s leadership is key to moving this issue forward in the Senate. His support could help save the lives of thousands of people. 20 years is too long—help us end the ban today!
Call The White House Comment Line TODAY at (202) 456-1414 or (202) 456-1111 and tell Obama to fulfill his promise and END THE BAN.
Phone Script:
Tell the operator where you are from and if you are a health professional and/or have any specific expertise relevant to needle exchange, AIDS, and/or harm reduction. It is okay if you don’t have specific expertise—Obama needs to hear from everyone, in every state, about this issue!
Ask the operator to tell President Obama:
The research is clear – syringe exchange programs work. The presence of syringe exchange programs in communities does not increase rates of drug use, nor does it lead to a rise in crime. What it does do: decrease transmission of HIV, Hepatitis C and other diseases.
Now is the time for the President to make good on his promise to support lifting the ban on federal funding for syringe exchange. We are calling on President Obama to let key congressional members know that the White House supports Chairman Obey in fully revoking the ban on federal funding for syringe exchange.
The President must also urge the Senate to refrain from adding any language or amendments to the Senate bill that would place undue restrictions on SEPs. The detrimental “1,000 Foot Rule” contained in the House bill may seem innocuous, but in reality it severely and unnecessarily limits the locations of SEPs. In some cases, the rule makes it impossible for urban communities to have needle exchange programs at all.
Vice President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi applaud during President Barack Obama's address to a joint session of Congress in the House Chamber of the Capitol in Washington on February 24, 2009. (PABLO MARTINEZ MONSIVAIS/AFP/Getty Images)
Medical care is a human right, and the US health care system falls far short. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations with strong US engagement, specifically lists adequate medical care as a human right (Article 25).
Tomorrow, President Obama will address a joint session of Congress to press our Senators and Representatives to advance meaningful health care reform. Therefore, it is essential that we remind our legislators now that crucial human rights are at stake.
