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Bernie Sanders releases plan to fight HIV/AIDS

Bernie Sanders releases plan to fight HIV/AIDS

Bernie Sanders, the longest-running Independent senator from Vermont who is currently running as a Democrat in the 2016 presidential election, has unveiled his plan to combat HIV/AIDS alongside a strategy to give those living with the virus cheaper medicine and more access to substance abuse and mental health services.

In a blog post on Sanders’ website, he lays out the problems faced by those living with HIV/AIDS and how medical companies exploit them as they drain their savings to stay alive. It’s a well researched, laid out plan that would help millions of people.

Unlike Hillary Clinton, who falsely praised Nancy Reagan for “her very effective, low-key advocacy…,” Sanders is talking about the real issues that people living with HIV face.

“It is indefensible that even with insurance and rebates, a person with HIV must spend thousands of dollars per year just on prescription drugs — often leaving them unable to afford decent housing or other necessities — all while profiteering companies continue to jack up the price of these treatments overnight, simply because they can.”

In his blog, Sanders lists a whole slew of adjustments that need to be made.

  1. Fight to reform the existing patent laws written by and for the pharmaceutical industry to boost their profits and which make medicine so expensive in the United States
  2. Lower costs for HIV/AIDS medicines
  3. Incentivize drug development with a “Prize Fund” of $3 billion per year
  4. Direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies and reduce barriers to the importation of lower-cost drugs from Canada and other countries
  5. Establish a Medicare-for-all single payer system
  6. Significantly expanding access to mental health and substance use disorder services
  7. Expand the highly successful Ryan White HIV/AIDS program which provides HIV-related services for those who do not have sufficient health care coverage or financial resources
  8. Push for legislation that would expand civil rights protections to all LGBT individuals and those living with HIV/AIDS
  9. Fight against the disastrous Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is because it would significantly increase prices for HIV/AIDS drugs for some of the most desperate people in the world

It’s all good on paper, but the followup will be hard. He will need support. Our support. We need a president that will fight for queer rights, and help our community strive, not a few comments about a woman who ignored a plague that exterminated 20,000 people before the words AIDS even left her lips publicly.

“We all must work together so we can finally realize the goal of an AIDS-free generation.”

We agree, Sanders. We agree.

 

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