[1145] in peace2
please read me
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Yael E Marshall)
Mon Oct 22 00:58:57 2001
Message-Id: <200110220458.AAA31157@skyscraper.mit.edu>
To: slugfest@MIT.EDU
cc: peace-list@MIT.EDU
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 00:58:50 -0400
From: Yael E Marshall <yaelm@MIT.EDU>
I'm sorry to spam you, but this is really important. Currently, there
is a proposal for the U.S. to give one billion dollars to the Global AIDS Fund.
This is a fund being organized by the U.N. and other experts in order to help
the millions of people with or in danger of
contracting HIV/AIDS. 23 million people currently live with
HIV/AIDS around the world. As you probably know, there are effective treatment
and prevention methods against AIDS, but not enough money is being allocated to
use them. The U.S. government has already agreed to support the Global AIDS Fund
with ~300 million dollars, knowing that Kofi Annan and AIDS experts say that
the Fund can only be effective with at least 7-10 billion dollars a year.
The U.S. also knows that it sets the standard for countries' donations to the
fund: with the U.S.'s initial commitment to 200 million dollars, the
total commitments from countries around the world summed up to less than one
billion dollars.
Three million people will die of AIDS this year. The U.S. is spending
much more than 100 billion dollars on the war against terrorism; it can afford to
spend one billion dollars on a humanitarian effort that has MUCH better chances
of helping millions of people. AIDS is a growing epidemic; if the U.S. doesn't
spend one billion dollars today, it'll need to spend much more to fight AIDS
in the future.
You can help! There is a letter urging Bush to allocate one billion dollars
for the Global AIDS Fund. A few senators and representatives have signed it
already. If you are a U.S. citizen, you can easily e-mail your
representatives and senators in your home state, telling them that you want
them to also sign that letter. If you're not a U.S. citizen, you could still
e-mail the senators and representatives of Cambridge, MA (or you could e-mail
the president or other members of the government). Just go to www.senate.org
and/or www.house.org and the websites will help you directly e-mail the
senators/representatives.
Imagine how great it would be if the U.S. actually sincerely and
effectively helps the Global AIDS Fund. The letter may stop circulating in
less than two weeks, so act now.
thanks for listening,
Yael Marshall
to read more: www.stopglobalaids.org
