42 Nations Sign Symbolic AIDS Pact : Health: Delegates vow Paris Declaration will launch solid, international action against disease. Activists express skepticism.

With the Eiffel Tower wearing a ribbon of bright red lights, political leaders from 42 countries signed a global declaration here Thursday, promising to protect the rights of people with AIDS and to work more closely with organizations representing them.

The declaration, like the ribbon on the Eiffel Tower, was largely symbolic. But delegates vowed that it will launch a solid, international political effort to drum up more money for research, improve the safety of the blood supply and bring the world’s largest nations together in the battle against AIDS.

“We have to face the painful truth that this is only the beginning,” said Donna Shalala, U.S. secretary of health and human services, in an address to the opening session of the Paris AIDS Summit. “Any breakdown in human solidarity is a victory for the virus.”

Leaders of AIDS support groups cautiously welcomed the Paris Declaration, saying they were pleased that the issue was being discussed on a world stage by powerful political leaders, but they were also worried that most countries will not take the document seriously.

Many agreed with the AIDS activists who marked World AIDS Day on Thursday with a protest on the Champs Elysee, laying prone beneath the Arc de Triomphe on the famed avenue and chanting: “Not words but action!”

“This declaration doesn’t do much for the needs of people with the disease,” said Arnaud Lavauzelle, president of AIDES Federation, the main association representing AIDS sufferers in France. “It’s a compromise, a political decision that doesn’t really help in our fight.”

Martina Clark, an American delegate for World GNP+, the Global Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS, said the declaration “is just a photo opportunity yet again.”

“There is nothing from this summit that will insist on changes in, for example, the U.S. immigration laws,” said Clark, from San Francisco. “There are still ways to skirt around the issue, and that is not acceptable.”

U.S. immigration policy, which requires special visas for people who are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, came under sharp criticism from delegates attending the conference. Russia and Japan, whose delegates signed the declaration, also place restrictions on foreigners with acquired immune deficiency syndrome who want to enter those countries.

Christophe Martet, a member of the French branch of ACT UP who is HIV-positive, said he did not believe that the Paris Declaration will make AIDS sufferers any more welcome in those countries.

“Each time I go to the States, I will still have to cross my fingers,” he said.

The declaration specifically binds the countries to, as a matter of national policy, “ensure equal protection under the law for persons living with HIV/AIDS” in access to health care, employment, education, travel, housing and social welfare.

Although the declaration seems to contradict current U.S. policy, Shalala, President Clinton’s representative at the summit, said no international declaration could override American laws set by Congress.

“No one can change a policy sitting here in Paris,” she said in an interview. “But it means we’ll keep our focus on the issue. This is really about solidarity in the fight against AIDS.”

Those who complain that the declaration does not go far enough “are right,” Shalala added. “As far as I’m concerned, until we rid the world of this disease, we won’t have gone far enough. But this is a strong step, a building block.”

Yann le Cam, vice president of a French AIDS support group, agreed that the summit, and the high-level government delegates who are attending, had opened a door that had previously been closed.

The delegates to the conference, which ends Saturday, represented countries from five continents and included 13 prime ministers.

U.S. officials said they hoped that the declaration and the Paris AIDS Summit will persuade other developed countries to spend more on AIDS research.

The U.S. government now provides about 40% of the world’s spending on AIDS research. And 92% of world funds to fight AIDS benefit only the developing world, where 8% of AIDS patients live.

International AIDS activists said, though, that American policy was paradoxical on the issue.

“On the one hand, they give money, and at the same time they maintain irrational restrictions on foreigners with AIDS who want to travel to the United States,” said Lavauzelle, of the French AIDS group, who was refused entry into the United States two years ago.

The World Health Organization says that 17 million people worldwide have been infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, and that figure will rise to between 30 million and 40 million within six years.

In an emotional address to the summit, Yolanda Simon, a member of GNP+ from the Caribbean who is HIV-positive, challenged the delegates to follow through on their promises, especially the declaration’s vow to “fully involve” organizations of people with AIDS in public policy decisions.

“Your policies for the last 10 years have driven most people living with HIV and AIDS underground,” she said. “Many of them are dying in isolation. We are tired of the lip service that you have been paying to us. Now what are you going to do when the ink on your signatures has dried?”

Paris Bureau researcher Sarah White contributed to this report.

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