Bill Tracker

Minnesota's HIV Prevention Budget

April 22, 2005

Statement from Dr. Alan Lifson

My name is Alan Lifson. I am a Professor of Public Health at the University of Minnesota, an infectious disease physician who takes care of AIDS patients, and a parent of two teenagers.

It was almost a quarter of century ago that I saw my first patient, and that I saw my first friend die of AIDS. I can't begin to tell you how many I have seen since then.

To me the greatest tragedy is not the first patient who died of AIDS but the most recent one. I and my colleagues around Minnesota continue to see young people year after year who have contracted this virus because they lacked the knowledge and skills to protect themselves.

As a Minnesotan where we have always had deep personal and, for many of us, religious conviction, that we have a duty to make the world a better place and to help our fellow man, I find it difficult to understand why we would not want to give our citizens information that could save so much suffering. I also find it difficult to understand why a legislator would specifically attack by name an organization that is respect throughout the state and country as a leader in this fight in protecting everyone at risk for HIV infection--all of us that make up this state.

If this is conservatism, there is nothing compassionate about this. I don't understand why this bill is anything more than an attack based on a cold and calculating ideology, playing with the lives of the people of this state to score political points.

I would like any legislator, before they vote for this initiative, to look into the eyes of a 15 year old girl or a 15 year old boy, and say that we are not going to give you information that could save your life. Heaven above and our hospitals below are far to crowded with these stars that have been darkened in what should have been the prime of their life.

Alan R. Lifson, MD, MPH
Professor, School of Public Health
University of Minnesota

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