By Matt Simonette

Staff Writer

Nearly a hundred medical students and community members rallied at the Chicago office of presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama Nov. 30 to demand reform of U.S. AIDS relief efforts.

The gathering at 230 S. Dearborn, sponsored by the American Medical Student Association, was intended as a platform to ask candidates to reform the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

President Bush authorized PEPFAR in 2003. The legislation, which called for $15 billion dollars over five years to fight HIV/AIDS, is up for reauthorization in 2008 and Bush has already pledged $30 billion. But the legislation needs significantly more funding to be effective, according to AMSA’s Kirsten Austad, one of the rally’s organizers.

Austad said the organization is asking all current presidential candidates to publicly support a three-tiered platform calling for a $50-billion allotment to fight HIV/AIDS over five years, the removal of an earmark setting aside one-third of the money for abstinence-based education and a commitment of $8 billion to support relief workers in Africa.

Jing Luo, another organizer, said it’s time that political candidates, rather than just paying lip service to the crisis, call for specific changes to HIV/AIDS policies.

“We don’t want just more of the same,” said Luo.

Also speaking at the rally were Catherine Christeller, executive director of the Chicago Women’s AIDS Project, and Matt Sharp, director of treatment and education for Test Positive Aware Network.

Audrey Till, a staffer in Obama’s office, read a statement from the senator that suggested he had gotten the protesters’ message.

“The senator joins AMSA in its commitment to stepping up efforts to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which has affected 33 million people around the world,” she said. “Obama supports AMSA’s goals to provide $50 billion by 2013 for the fight against HIV/AIDS, to increase our prevention strategies beyond abstinence-only programs and to reauthorize and revise PEPFAR to effectively fund workforce-training and retention programs.”

After the rally, protesters marched to Illinois Republican headquarters at the corner of Wells and Randolph. According to AMSA, not one Republican presidential candidate has yet responded to the organizations platform.

“The silence on the Republican side means that they are complacent on this issue. It means that they believe that talking about millions of preventable deaths attributed to AIDS each year is just not worth their time,” Luo said.

But he added that it’s not too late for the GOP candidates to speak out on the issue.

“They still have a chance to turn their silence around,” Luo said.

The rally ended with the protestors loudly chanting, “Less bombs in Iraq, more meds in developing countries.”

Austad said that statistics suggest that the AIDS crisis is still a pressing global issue, and future doctors would need to shoulder significant responsibilities.

“This is really an important time in this pandemic, and it’s time for the next generation of medical students to step up to this fight,” she said.