AIDS Committee and Research

Board of Trustees
December 1986
White Plains, New York


The Board of the UAHC notes with gratification the effective steps that have been taken to implement the resolution on AIDS passed at the Biennial Assembly in l985. We commend the UAHC Committee on AIDS for its efforts to raise the consciousness of our congregations about this tragic and alarming epidemic.

To expedite this process, the Board of the UAHC, in the spirit of bikur cholim:

  1. Urges that all arms of the UAHC--youth, education, camps, social action, Sisterhood, etc.-- should help stimulate awareness among our member of all ages about aspects of the AIDS crisis, including the disease itself and the panic it has spawned.
  2. Expresses its profound appreciation to the National Academy of Science for its authoritative and challenging report on the AIDS crisis. We associate ourselves with the commission's profound sense of urgency about the escalating "catastrophe," which poses a public health crisis and must be given high priority on our nation's agenda. Accordingly, we join in the Academy's plea for urgent moral leadership on the part of the president and other leaders of the government to establish as national priorities the development of a crash program of research leading to treatment and prevention.
  3. Commends Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop for his statement of urgency, as well as the Academy's request for an expenditure of $3 million annually to accelerate research and to mount a wide-ranging educational and consciousness-raising campaign for all Americans.
  4. Calls upon all UAHC congregations to participate in this urgent effort.