Matthew Kavanagh is an AIDS and human rights activist and Director of US Advocacy at Health GAP (Global Access Project). He was previously the director of Global Justice, a national human rights organization working on AIDS, trade, and child heath, and is an active member of the AIDS activist group DC Fights Back. He has worked with a wide variety of NGOs and social-movement organizations in the US, Latin America, and Southern Africa—recently on water rights and Apartheid reparations campaigns in Johannesburg. He has written articles and curricula on issues ranging from US family law to the economic roots of the global HIV/AIDS pandemic.
President Obama has repeatedly stressed his administration’s commitment to science as one way to distinguish his leadership from that of his predecessor. Right now that commitment is being put to the test on HIV and AIDS: if the President could do more to end the crisis, would he?
Paul Farmer has shown that with commitment and smart use of resources, international development programs can work–can change lives and make human rights into human realities.
