ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, December 7, 1995 TAG: 9512070076
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: The Washington Post
President Clinton pledged to protect funding and health care programs for AIDS patients during a White House conference Wednesday where activists from around the country asked him to do more to find a cure and a vaccine.
The undertone of the first White House conference on AIDS and HIV - and the direct complaint of protesters outside the White House - was that while Clinton has done more than other presidents to combat AIDS by increased funding and research, it has not been enough. Several speakers compared the disease to the civil war in Bosnia and said the Clinton administration should put it on the top of its domestic priority list.
``I support what you're doing for the Bosnia people to keep peace and end the war,'' said Shawn Sasser, an activist who introduced Clinton to the more than 250 people at the one-day conference. ``But we also have a war raging right here for the last 15 years. Let's fight and pay whatever it costs to defeat the war on AIDS right here at home.''
AIDS is now the leading killer of Americans between the ages of 25 and 44. Earlier this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that the 500,000th American had been diagnosed with AIDS and more than 300,000 have died.
After Clinton's opening remarks to the conference he participated in a discussion of needle-sharing among addicts, mandatory AIDS testing and pediatric AIDS.
Clinton said he had ordered preparation of a governmentwide research plan, including a budget, within 90 days.
He also said he had asked Vice President Gore to convene a meeting of scientists and pharmaceutical industry leaders to study ways of speeding up the development of vaccines and therapeutics.
``A cure and a vaccine. That must be our first and top priority,`` Clinton told the conference. At the end of his speech, a heckler in the room complained that the Clinton administration had not done enough. ``I am very sorry that there is not a cure. I am very sorry that there is not a vaccine,'' Clinton replied.
Clinton attacked Republican Medicaid spending reductions and pledged to fight the GOP cuts. Medicaid pays the health care costs of nearly half of all Americans with AIDS, including more than 90 percent of the children.
LENGTH: Short : 49 linesby CNB