Michael Emanuel Rajner: Senate must reject Dr. John Armstrong, demand leadership on HIV/AIDS

The Florida Senate Health Policy Committee today will decide Dr. John Armstrong’s fate as a group of bipartisan senators confront Florida’s surgeon general with tough questions that include his absent leadership on HIV/AIDS.

Florida leads the nation with the highest rate of new HIV infections.

Like that of President Ronald Reagan’s shameful legacy of refusing to respond to the nation’s AIDS epidemic, Armstrong avoided the issue and has never engaged stakeholders responding to Florida’s HIV/AIDS crisis.

Last September, in a letter Sen. Don Gaetz welcomed nearly 400 people living with HIV/AIDS at the Positive Living conference in Fort Walton Beach.

“As one of the founders of hospice in America, I’ve seen firsthand how the care of persons with HIV/AIDS has changed from hopeless to hopeful, from an assumed terminal prognosis to proven and effective treatment that sustains life…There’s far more to do to prevent HIV/AIDS and to care for those who live with its consequences.”

As a person living with HIV/AIDS, I’m grateful for the senators who I had the opportunity to share my concerns. Many Floridians are unaware of Gaetz being a founder of the state’s largest hospice program at a time when AIDS ravaged the lives of so many gay men in Miami.

Many of these men were abandoned by their families and left to a death void of dignity and respect had it not been for Gaetz and his hospice.

Over the last two weeks, Armstrong has been circulating a sterilized editorial to publications around the state. But he fails to acknowledge the cancer in his leadership team. In 2008, Armstrong’s deputy chief operating officer Nathan Dunn led the effort to pass the Florida Marriage Protection Amendment, a constitutional amendment that enshrined discrimination in the Florida Constitution.

Since Rick Scott became governor, the state has languished in its response to the HIV/AIDS crisis. In the past, every Florida governor issued a proclamation on Dec. 1 for World AIDS Day. Scott’s administration has ignored this critical day.

After Scott was sworn into office in 2011, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson’s first written communication with him was on Florida’s crisis for people living with HIV/AIDS to access HIV/AIDS medications. Florida led the nation with having more than 10,000 people on a wait list for HIV medications.

In 2012, then Surgeon General Frank Farmer on rebuffed Elton John’s appeal for Scott to act on the crisis.

“We welcome any suggestions or ideas you have to help us do more with our existing funding,” Farmer replied. “I once again cordially invite you to consider an ADAP fundraising concert series in Florida. I know you have a big fan base here, and we would love to welcome you to the Sunshine State.”

At a time when we can effectively prevent the transmission of HIV/AIDS, Floridians deserve a healthier Florida and a surgeon general who is willing to engage every Floridian.

Perhaps this September at the United States Conference on AIDS in Hollywood, Fla., the state’s next surgeon general can convene a meeting with state surgeon generals from around the nation and draft a blueprint to end the HIV/AIDS crisis.

I urge the Florida Senate Health Policy Committee to reject Armstrong as surgeon general.

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Michael Emanuel Rajner is as person living with HIV/AIDS since 1995 and a resident of Broward County who served on the Florida AIDS Drug Assistance Program Advisory under Govs. Charlie Crist and Rick Scott. Column courtesy of Context Florida.