Formal Self-Introductions by Members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS

Formal Self-Introductions by Members of the
Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS
27 July 1995, Washington, DC
Good Morning. My name is Bruce Weniger. I am a physician
engaged in public health and epidemiologic research with the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention, where I have worked since 1980
and have been involved full-time since 1988 in conducting
international HIV/AIDS research and training, with a focus on the
epidemic in Asia and South America. I founded and was the first
director of the HIV/AIDS Collaboration, a joint U.S.-Thailand
government AIDS research center in Bangkok.
As a federal employee working on AIDS, I want to make it clear
that I am not here officially representing my agency, nor necessarily
speaking official policy. Indeed, the President has asked us
individually to contribute our advice and counsel on what's right and
what's wrong with the Government's efforts, and what it should be
doing differently, and I hope my international perspective and candid
observations from inside the AIDS bureaucracy will fulfill his
mandate to us.
I am honored to be a part of this properly diverse group, each
with our own unique experiences and insights on the many front lines
of the campaign against this epidemic. I look forward to being
educated by your own individual knowledge in the many aspects of
confronting this disease. I hope we can work together to develop for
the President a consensus of thoughtful assessments of what the major
problems are, reflecting all the constituencies represented here, and
to suggest both practical strategies and visionary paths of
leadership for his consideration.
The particular area on which I would like to focus is scientific
research. Clearly, effective treatments for all those who are now
infected that would permit a normal lifespan free of AIDS disease,
and a real cure, should always remain a fundamental research priority
for this nation. When such drugs come, God willing, they are sure to
be expensive, and for many, many countries less fortunate than our
own, may be unaffordable. Thus, if we are ever to be successful in
preventing infection among the roughly 40,000 Americans who acquire
HIV every year, and the millions who become newly-infected worldwide

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