As part of its ongoing advocacy efforts to spur President Obama and his administration to do more on AIDS, AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) is rolling out a new national ad campaign headlined 'What has the President done about AIDS?' The first leg of the campaign, a series of pointed online text and banner ads on Politico.com's Playbook and Pulse websites started running Monday July 4th on Mike Allen's Politico Playbook and will run through Friday July 15th on Politico's Pulse. A 'What has the President done about AIDS?' television ad premieres on CNN in several markets nationwide, starting Monday July 11th in Washington, DC and on Monday July 18th in Florida (Miami-Dade market)—the state with the most severe AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) waiting list crisis with over 3,500 AIDS patients currently on its waiting list—and in Ohio (Columbus), a state with another significant ADAP crisis. To round out the campaign, AHF will also run a 'What has the President done about AIDS?' outdoor transit ad in ten bus shelters in Washington surrounding the White House starting July 18th.
"After two-and-a-half years in office, President Obama has little to show on AIDS domestically or globally. US AIDS programs have been starved. Today, more than 8,600 Americans in thirteen states are on waiting lists, denied access to lifesaving AIDS drugs from hard-hit state AIDS Drug Assistance Programs. Additional thousands are being disenrolled entirely as states change their patient eligibility criteria for these programs," said Michael Weinstein, President of AIDS Healthcare Foundation. "As wait lists grew to the highest numbers ever seen, instead of addressing the crisis at hand, President Obama squandered fifteen months drafting a national AIDS strategy. And by not honoring the US' commitment to the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the President has also slowed remarkable progress made on global AIDS. All this at a time of the greatest hope on AIDS in years: new studies show that AIDS treatment can reduce the transmission of new HIV infections by as much as 96%."
When campaigning for President, then-Senator Obama promised to "provide at least $50 billion by 2013 for the global fight against HIV/AIDS . . . in order to at least double the number of HIV-positive people on treatment and continue to provide treatments to one- third of all those who desperately need them."
As President, Obama has not honored that promise, refusing to fully-fund PEPFAR, the landmark U.S. global AIDS response created by President George W. Bush in 2003.
"Not only is the administration's failure to lead on AIDS threatening the lives of thousands of Americans and countless others worldwide, it also hurts efforts to prevent the spread of the disease," added AHF's Weinstein. "This President has done little on AIDS so far. Now the question is, what will President Obama do on AIDS?"
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