Do you have a twitter account or know someone who does? Here's a really easy way to support the Global Fund. The White House is going make a decision very soon whether or not to provide our fair share to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS TB and Malaria..maybe even this week. A broad movement like this on Twitter can really show a swelling of public support for this idea to a President that understands that social media is a real force.
Please take this action from the ONE campaign...
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Personally, I tweet about a lot of things: bad movies, favorite Onion articles, proud accomplishments in the world of novice cooking—but today I'm using Twitter to do something a lot more remarkable and I hope you will too.
Right now, I and thousands of others are tweeting directly to President Obama, asking him to increase support for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria over the next three years. We need you to join us:
Click here to tweet!
Because of advances in science and technology, we now know how to prevent a baby from being born with HIV. And if the Global Fund gets the funding it needs over the next three years, virtually no baby will be born with HIV by 2015.
Unfortunately, the President proposed a cut to the Global Fund and we need to change his mind.
One tweet might not make a huge difference—but thousands of tweets from all across the country really can get his attention. We built a very simple tool to make it easy for you. Check it out:
Click here to tweet!
I signed up to become a ONE member back in 2005 – and for me, there are a handful of campaigns that really stand out. This Global Fund campaign is one of those.
I can't thank you enough for all you've done with ONE.
–Ginny Simmons, Deputy Director of New Media, @ONECampaign
P.S. Not on Twitter? You can still help out: just forward this email to someone you know that is on Twitter, and tell them it’s time to collect on that favor they owe you. We really appreciate it.
Showing posts with label TB. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TB. Show all posts
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Global vs. Domestic Poverty...Is it really "us" or "them"?
Sometimes I get a blog comment that really needs to come out to be it's own post. I got a very sincere comment from a reader who is troubled about domestic poverty and is concerned that efforts to combat global poverty are detracting from efforts to help U.S. citizens. I invite you to read her thoughtful comment and my response below because it is a very common conversation. No matter how you feel about this, please get involved and be engaged in the fight against whatever type of poverty inflames your passion!
“I think it's fantastic that these people want to help end hunger and poverty around the world. But there is one thing that has always bothered me... So many organizations based in the US work so hard to aid other countries with their poverty. What I see is all the homeless and poverty stricken Americans that need that aid just as much. I feel that we as Americans can provide so much more support to other countries if we ensure that our own citizens are healthy, happy, and well cared for first. If we could provide for all the American's in need, our economy and general moral would be so much higher. Thus, making America in a better position to provide for other countries. I'm sorry, but I feel like we should take care of ourselves first and foremost... to be stronger for the struggles ahead.” –Jessica
Thank you for sharing your feelings, Jessica. You’re not alone in your opinion. I offer a few thoughts to consider.
Advocacy organizations like Bread for the World and RESULTS agree with you in that we cannot ignore the suffering in our own country. Bread runs a domestic hunger campaign approximately every other year (past US campaigns have been for food stamps & TANF...next year's will be focused on US poverty as well). RESULTS also has groups of volunteers with domestic focus that did considerable work to develop our Head Start program (most of them are working on health care now) in addition to groups working on global issues.
Where Bread and RESULTS disagree with you is the notion that this is an either/or situation...help them OR help us. We invest only 0.17% of our national budget on international poverty reduction. Considering how many times our military must intervene in countries destabilized by destitute poverty (costing us money and - worse- lives), the savings and benefits to our citizens for eradicating extreme poverty is enormous.
Also, please consider that global health is a local issue. We have all but wiped out tuberculosis here, but because the world hasn't addressed it globally, Multi Drug Resistant TB developed in poverty hotspots and now is showing up in our borders because it's an airborne disease only a plane ride away.
Lastly, I encourage you to consider the relative scale of poverty. When we speak of poverty in the U.S., it doesn't really come close to the World Bank's definition of extreme poverty...living on less than $1.25 a day. Generally, even the poorest Americans have access to clean water through public drinking fountains.
I thank you for your comment and encourage you to take your passion for helping those in need to a level of advocacy. Visit Bread at www.bread.org or RESULTS at www.results.org to get connected and engaged!
“I think it's fantastic that these people want to help end hunger and poverty around the world. But there is one thing that has always bothered me... So many organizations based in the US work so hard to aid other countries with their poverty. What I see is all the homeless and poverty stricken Americans that need that aid just as much. I feel that we as Americans can provide so much more support to other countries if we ensure that our own citizens are healthy, happy, and well cared for first. If we could provide for all the American's in need, our economy and general moral would be so much higher. Thus, making America in a better position to provide for other countries. I'm sorry, but I feel like we should take care of ourselves first and foremost... to be stronger for the struggles ahead.” –Jessica
Thank you for sharing your feelings, Jessica. You’re not alone in your opinion. I offer a few thoughts to consider.
Advocacy organizations like Bread for the World and RESULTS agree with you in that we cannot ignore the suffering in our own country. Bread runs a domestic hunger campaign approximately every other year (past US campaigns have been for food stamps & TANF...next year's will be focused on US poverty as well). RESULTS also has groups of volunteers with domestic focus that did considerable work to develop our Head Start program (most of them are working on health care now) in addition to groups working on global issues.
Where Bread and RESULTS disagree with you is the notion that this is an either/or situation...help them OR help us. We invest only 0.17% of our national budget on international poverty reduction. Considering how many times our military must intervene in countries destabilized by destitute poverty (costing us money and - worse- lives), the savings and benefits to our citizens for eradicating extreme poverty is enormous.
Also, please consider that global health is a local issue. We have all but wiped out tuberculosis here, but because the world hasn't addressed it globally, Multi Drug Resistant TB developed in poverty hotspots and now is showing up in our borders because it's an airborne disease only a plane ride away.
Lastly, I encourage you to consider the relative scale of poverty. When we speak of poverty in the U.S., it doesn't really come close to the World Bank's definition of extreme poverty...living on less than $1.25 a day. Generally, even the poorest Americans have access to clean water through public drinking fountains.
I thank you for your comment and encourage you to take your passion for helping those in need to a level of advocacy. Visit Bread at www.bread.org or RESULTS at www.results.org to get connected and engaged!
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Today is World TB Day: AIDS/TB info
From ACTION, a sister organization to RESULTS which focuses on advocacy to control TB internationally...
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TB is the leading killer of people living with HIV/AIDS. WHO’s annual report showed that 1.4 million people were found to be co-infected in 2007, double the number reported the previous year due to improvements in data gathering. Despite the very high rates of TB among those who are HIV-positive, many people living with HIV/AIDS lack access to TB testing and treatment. Currently, only an estimated two percent of people with HIV/AIDS have been screened for TB. This has especially dire consequences for sub-Saharan Africa where an estimated 1.1 million of the 1.4 million co-infected individuals live, and where more than half of TB deaths are among people living with HIV/AIDS.
"Living with HIV, Dying of TB: A Critique of the Response of Global AIDS Donors to the Co-epidemic," the report released by ACTION, found that institutions including the World Bank; the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria; the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR); and the UK Department for International Development (DFID); were all failing to adequately address this problem. In some cases, the institutions lacked the means to even monitor whether funding was provided for TB-HIV efforts, let alone the efficacy of such investments. Where funding had been allocated, the report found that resources were insufficient.
The growing problem of multi-drug resistant (MDR) and extensively drug-resistant (XDR) TB has had a particularly devastating effect on those who are HIV-positive. There is a significant danger that the massive scale-up of HIV/AIDS related services, if not matched by a comparable investment in TB and TB-HIV efforts could actually be worsening the situation - as TB can spread rapidly in congregate settings like HIV/AIDS clinics. The need for universal TB screening and treatment, and effective infection control for people living with HIV/AIDS is urgent.
ACTION’s report recommends that all major HIV/AIDS donors increase their investment in combining efforts to fight both diseases, and institute practical measures to monitor progress.
----------------------------------
TB is the leading killer of people living with HIV/AIDS. WHO’s annual report showed that 1.4 million people were found to be co-infected in 2007, double the number reported the previous year due to improvements in data gathering. Despite the very high rates of TB among those who are HIV-positive, many people living with HIV/AIDS lack access to TB testing and treatment. Currently, only an estimated two percent of people with HIV/AIDS have been screened for TB. This has especially dire consequences for sub-Saharan Africa where an estimated 1.1 million of the 1.4 million co-infected individuals live, and where more than half of TB deaths are among people living with HIV/AIDS.
"Living with HIV, Dying of TB: A Critique of the Response of Global AIDS Donors to the Co-epidemic," the report released by ACTION, found that institutions including the World Bank; the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria; the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR); and the UK Department for International Development (DFID); were all failing to adequately address this problem. In some cases, the institutions lacked the means to even monitor whether funding was provided for TB-HIV efforts, let alone the efficacy of such investments. Where funding had been allocated, the report found that resources were insufficient.
The growing problem of multi-drug resistant (MDR) and extensively drug-resistant (XDR) TB has had a particularly devastating effect on those who are HIV-positive. There is a significant danger that the massive scale-up of HIV/AIDS related services, if not matched by a comparable investment in TB and TB-HIV efforts could actually be worsening the situation - as TB can spread rapidly in congregate settings like HIV/AIDS clinics. The need for universal TB screening and treatment, and effective infection control for people living with HIV/AIDS is urgent.
ACTION’s report recommends that all major HIV/AIDS donors increase their investment in combining efforts to fight both diseases, and institute practical measures to monitor progress.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
World TB day coming up...get educated!
Scientific American has run an editorial essay just in time to get us thinking about World TB day coming up on March 24. John Rennie tells a bit about the killer and why it is still such an insidious and devastating problem today. His comments precede an article called "New Tactics in the Fight Against Tuberculosis"
Some excerpts from the editorial:
"Most Americans have the luxury of knowing almost nothing about tuberculosis. Because it is typically not a fact of life for us or anyone we know 99 percent of its victims are the poor residing in developing countries TB can sit comfortingly on the horizon of our awareness, perhaps colored by wisps of romanticized claptrap about John Keats and other consumptive poets whose presentiment of their looming mortality is imagined to have spiritually illuminated their genius.
TB is anything but romantic, however. It is a grindingly awful, painful, wretched affliction that preys on the weak and those already worst served by society. Roughly 5,000 more of them will die of it on the day you read this column."
"Because TB strikes those with weakened immune systems, it has joined forces in recent decades with HIV, the other modern infectious scourge, further complicating the management and treatment of both conditions. Moreover, TB is adept at evolving resistance to antibiotics. Health authorities have helplessly watched the emergence of both a multidrug-resistant strain that survives the two most powerful treatments and an extensively drug-resistant strain that shrugs off the second-line antibiotics as well.
The depleted state of medicine's arsenal against TB is all the more galling because it could and should have been avoided. TB became aggressively antibiotic-resistant because so many patients stopped taking their pills when they started to feel better a failure of both human nature and the health care system. Economics, too, has abetted TB's survival: paltry financial incentives for serving the huge but poor market of its patients have historically dulled pharmaceutical industry interest. Fortunately, as Clifton E. Barry III and Maija S. Cheung describe in "New Tactics against Tuberculosis", philanthropic and governmental grants are reinvigorating that research."
Some excerpts from the editorial:
"Most Americans have the luxury of knowing almost nothing about tuberculosis. Because it is typically not a fact of life for us or anyone we know 99 percent of its victims are the poor residing in developing countries TB can sit comfortingly on the horizon of our awareness, perhaps colored by wisps of romanticized claptrap about John Keats and other consumptive poets whose presentiment of their looming mortality is imagined to have spiritually illuminated their genius.
TB is anything but romantic, however. It is a grindingly awful, painful, wretched affliction that preys on the weak and those already worst served by society. Roughly 5,000 more of them will die of it on the day you read this column."
"Because TB strikes those with weakened immune systems, it has joined forces in recent decades with HIV, the other modern infectious scourge, further complicating the management and treatment of both conditions. Moreover, TB is adept at evolving resistance to antibiotics. Health authorities have helplessly watched the emergence of both a multidrug-resistant strain that survives the two most powerful treatments and an extensively drug-resistant strain that shrugs off the second-line antibiotics as well.
The depleted state of medicine's arsenal against TB is all the more galling because it could and should have been avoided. TB became aggressively antibiotic-resistant because so many patients stopped taking their pills when they started to feel better a failure of both human nature and the health care system. Economics, too, has abetted TB's survival: paltry financial incentives for serving the huge but poor market of its patients have historically dulled pharmaceutical industry interest. Fortunately, as Clifton E. Barry III and Maija S. Cheung describe in "New Tactics against Tuberculosis", philanthropic and governmental grants are reinvigorating that research."
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