Wednesday's Report (Toronto AIDS Conference)

Stumbled out of bed late this morning after missing my alarm clock, then rushed to catch the subway, grab a refined-sugar breakfast (coffee and cinnamon bun), and make it to the Plenary Session… which I have to admit made me feel completely intellectually inferior. There was much pharmaceutical research-based talk of medicine and biology, and the social scientist in me was longing for some Human Rights or psychosocial based dialogue.

But, the flip side is that I am motivated to educate myself on the scientific/biological side of the pandemic. My work and interested has been focused around healing the spirit, but keeping the physical body alive is equally as important.

Why is so vital to keep people alive?

It seems like such a bizarre question to pose, but I think it is fascinating to explore. As a collective group of human beings we are far to numerous and we are doing far too much damage to sustain the rate that we are consuming and disposing. Some would argue that AIDS is nature’s way of controlling the population, a Darwinian reality of “survival of the fittest”, or even a punishment for those who are engaging in “immoral” behaviour.

I argue, however, that we as a species (with a conscience) will have failed if we do not care for each other in our time of immobility, poverty, and exhaustion. We will be able to hold our heads high in the future, if we can look back and be proud of our past. There is space for mistakes along the way, and these mistakes will teach us invaluable lessons, but I can guarantee that acting with compassion and empathy will lead to a future of wisdom, community, and pride. The most valuable commodity, in my option, is human life; we must fight to keep mothers alive to raise their children.

Today I am feeling especially inspired from listening to the wisdom of Dr. Stephen Lewis, he spoke tonight down at the Harbour Front. Dr. Lewis is a diplomat, humanitarian, and authour (“Race Against Time”) who is not afraid to speak of the gap between political vision and actual human realities. He is a powerful ally in the empowerment of woman and fights for funding for orphans who have lost their parents to AIDS. Listening to him speak is like a little bit of dark chocolate for my soul.

On a lighter note…

I have been doing a lot of filming while at the conference and have a little pipe-dream of making a short, 15-minute documentary about what I am experiencing in the Global Village, in my sessions, and in the halls. Hopefully I will get the opportunity to sit down and sort through the footage and do some editing… if it happens, then I would love the opportunity to share it with you!

Kisses!



More buzz words/concepts:

ARV’s – this is an acronym for Anti-RetroViral treatments. These are essentially the drugs that are needed to suppress the HIV within a person’s blood stream. Huge progress has been made in the past ten years in regards to allowing people to live with HIV… drug regiments used to include 17 pills per day, now the norm is 3 pills.

“3 by 5” – this is a goal that was set to have 3 million people in sub-saharan Africa on life saving anti-retroviral drugs by the year 2005. Unfortunately this goal was not met, but 1.6 million people currently have access to ARV treatment. To put this in context, there are 25 million people in Africa with HIV/AIDS.

Universal Access – the ultimate ideal in regards to enabling each human being access to drug therapies. The goal is to have universal access to medication by the year 2010. It is absolutely ludicrous in my mind to know that medication exists, but it will take another half decade before people can access it (drugs have patents, international policy blocks access, people move alarmingly slow sometimes).