For Immediate Release

December 3, 2004

Contact: Senator Gill 973-509-7846

SENATOR GILL DELIVERS KEYNOTE ADDRESS TO STATEWIDE AIDS CONFERENCE

Senator Nia H. Gill gave the keynote speech at the state-side AIDS Conference in Atlantic City last week pledging to continue to press in Trenton for legislation and financial support to reduce the spread of AIDS in New Jersey .

“I cannot promise what the state Legislature will do, but I can promise what I will do,” Senator Gill told several hundred healthcare workers. “I will continue to press the fight for you so that the government becomes more responsive and listens. I will continue to push, cajole, remind and yell when necessary that the state government needs to provide the tools for you to do your difficult jobs.”

The rate of AIDS and HIV in New Jersey is at epidemic levels and is particularly high among women and children.

•  New Jersey has the third highest rate of HIV/AIDS infection among children in the nation – more than 7 of every 10 of those children are African-American.

•  New Jersey has the highest rate of HIV/AIDS infection among women in the country – nearly two out of three of those women are African-American.

•  More than 31,432 New Jersey residents have died from AIDS and left 22,000 of New Jersey children orphaned.

•  At least 900 children have died from AIDS in New Jersey .

Senator Gill said she will urge the Legislature to expand clean-needle programs so that communities that want to adopt them are legally able. The senator said she will advocate for additional drug treatment and mental health services in the state budget. And Senator Gill said she would press for additional prevention and education programs with an emphasis on directing the programs toward young women of color.

“The state Legislature must take actions that are compelled by simple common sense, “Senator Gill said. “We are morally compelled to do so. I respectfully suggest to my legislative colleagues that if there were any other cause of hundreds of deaths of children, thousands of deaths of women and the orphaning of tens of thousands of children – our Legislature would act on an emergency basis to reduce that cause.”

Senator Gill was praised by Atlantic City Mayor Lorenzo Langford for her legislation to allow for clean-needle programs to reduce infections.

tlantic City has one of the highest AIDS and HIV rates of any city in the country, with 1 in 32 African-Americans infected with HIV and one of every 40 residents afflicted.