FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Brooklyn, NY—Secretary Hillary Clinton kept her promise this afternoon and met with 20 AIDS advocates from across the United States today at her Brooklyn campaign headquarters to discuss national and global HIV/AIDS strategy. The meeting attendees represent a larger coalition of over 70 advocates across the country who are working on HIV/AIDS issues and want to bring HIV into the forefront of national conversation.

During the one-hour meeting, Secretary Clinton said that HIV/AIDS would be a priority in a Clinton Administration. In particular she expressed her commitment to combating HIV stigma, asserting that stigma and the resulting silence about the disease remains a major barrier in the fight to end the epidemic, especially in the South. Clinton was very knowledgeable on the issue, acknowledging how HIV has dropped from national discourse since the height of the crisis, and she had a strong awareness of which communities are most at risk for HIV.

Meeting attendees also discussed scaling up all available tools for prevention and treatment, including PrEP, nPEP, treatment as prevention, and housing for people living with HIV in order to end AIDS as an epidemic in the U.S. by 2025. They also discussed how the U.S. could play a major role in ending the global epidemic by increasing funding and leveraging existing resources. This meeting was a productive start of what committed to be an ongoing conversation. HIV/AIDS advocates look forward to working on these issues with Secretary Clinton, and the coalition is hoping to meet with both Senator Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.