Philly Group Launches First Annual AIDS Cure Day

In an effort to bring back the focus on finding a cure for HIV/AIDS, the AIDS Policy Project in Philadelphia is launching the First Annual AIDS Cure Day, to be held on Oct. 5. They are encouraging people around the world to plan local events to educate people on finding and funding a cure for AIDS.

"There has been a big uptick in AIDS research in the last few years, with the Berlin patient," said AIDS Policy Project Executive Director Kate Krauss. "But even a few years ago, it was considered dumb and na�ve to use the word 'cure.' It was oddly stigmatized in AIDS research in the U.S. Since then, we have come to a juncture where we want to celebrate how far the research has come, and show how much there still is to do."

So Krauss and her team came up with the idea of the AIDS Cure Day. They wanted to mobilize organizations and individuals across the country to teach people about the prospects of a cure for HIV, and hopefully spur the National Institutes of Health to put more money behind the effort.

Activists from the AIDS Action Policy caused a stir when they publicly questioned Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci in front of reporters at a recent AIDS Conference about why the U.S. was still spending only 3 percent of its research budget on a cure.

"We want to shine a light on this research, and tell people that we're at this amazing moment where if we push, we may have a cure for everybody within the next few years," said Krauss. "If not, it might backslide."

Krauss said that a cure for AIDS wasn't a high priority at the NIH; initially, the organization said they didn't track how much they earmarked for the cure. After AIDS Policy Project got activist Larry Kramer involved and ran a Freedom of Information Act, it revealed that with reportedly that the NIH spent about $56.4M per year -- only 3 percent of their annual overall AIDS budget -- on the search for a cure for AIDS.

Eventually, said Krauss, they will ask the NIH to increase the budget for a cure to $240M, a quarter of the money they put into vaccine research. But for now, they are asking people to educate those around them about why this battle is important.

On Oct. 5, they will offer teach-ins and support materials, as well as an online webinar and a volunteer hotline, where a major researcher will be on hand to answer people's scientific or complex questions about the search for a cure. They will also provide posters and buttons, a PowerPoint display, a guide on teach-ins and YouTube videos to help explain the facts. Special materials are available for medical students.

So far, about 40 different people have signed up to do teach-ins among their friends, neighbors, support groups or church. These efforts include states like Maine, Tennessee, San Diego, St. Louis and Philadelphia. Interest has also come from groups in Poland, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and South Africa.

"It tends to get to people through social media," said Krauss. "It's a lot of women, a lot of disenfranchised people in rural areas, places that are not like New York City -- places where you can't easily talk to people about this."

There are also cultural issues at work, said Krauss. Her group is encouraging researchers to publicly say that they are working on a cure for AIDS, to end the stigma around researchers looking foolish for pursuing what has largely been viewed as a pie-in-the-sky goal.

"Types of research go in and out of popularity," said Kraus. "For a long time, AIDS cure research wasn't cool. Now, immune-based therapies are not cool. But we are looking at the possibility that an eventual cure will involve a drug that activates the latent virus, and another that helps strengthen an immune system decimated by HIV. We need all the parts of the puzzle to make it work."