John Edwards, the eternally youthful, former North Carolina senator today announced his intention to run for president. While the news barely received an audible ripple in the blogosphere, one issue about Edwards continues to trouble me.
Why did John Edwards turn his back on AIDS victims?
Many people on the left adore John Edwards. They say he was the best thing to come out of the failed 2004 John Kerry presidential campaign. His supporters (especially straight women and gay men) say Edwards was the perfect yin to John Kerry’s yang. Edwards, with his wide, photogenic smile, sexy mop of surfer boy hair and pleasant, easy manner, provided a much needed contrast to the stiff, heavily scripted, mummified John Kerry.
As a political activist, I have spent the past decade heavily focused on gay rights, gay marriage equity and HIV/AIDS care and research. That said, I have always wondered why the former Senator John Edwards seemed to care so little about people living with HIV/AIDS in his home state of North Carolina?
Background:Â
At least half of all underinsured and uninsured Americans living with HIV/AIDS rely on ADAP or AIDS Drug Assistance Program - a joint Federal/50 state program authorized under Title II of the Ryan White Care Act, to provide them with free, lifesaving, anti-retroviral drugs to stave off the destructive march of the HIV virus on their immune systems. For the underinsured and uninsured, ADAP is a reprieve from what would otherwise be a death sentence.
Yet North Carolina (John Edwards’ homestate) has one of the most miserly ADAP programs in the USA, with one of the most restrictive income eligibility levels to qualify for assistance – 125% of poverty. This means anyone living with HIV/AIDS who earns more than $12,250 a year cannot receive ADAP assistance in North Carolina. Adding insult to injury, North Carolina frequently caps new enrollment to the program for the recently diagnosed. In the six years he was a senator (1998-2004), John Edwards repeatedly ignored the chronic funding issues facing North Carolina’s ADAP program. In fact, HIV/AIDS never seemed to appear on Edwards’ radar screen.
My office wrote to John Edwards’ One America office via email on three, separate occasions and I asked him to specifically address the twin issues of HIV/AIDS care and ADAP funding in his homestate of North Carolina. I never received a reply.
Let me repeat, I never received a reply.
While John Edwards should certainly be lauded for his recent work building homes for the poor, the very real fact remains that Edwards has demonstrated no concern for his fellow North Carolinians fighting to survive another day with HIV/AIDS. Perhaps, John Edwards vision for America is too myopic to include HIV/AIDS victims?