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- Parte de Records of the Office of the Public Liaison (Clinton Administration), Elizabeth (Julian) Potter's files
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OCR Page 1 of 117AIDS
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
December 6, 1995
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
AT THE WHITE HOUSE CONFERENCE
ON HIV AND AIDS
The Cash Room
Treasury Building
1:10 P.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: First of all, thank you, Sean, and thank
you, Eileen. Thank you, Patsy Fleming and Secretary Shalala,
Secretary Cisneros. Thank you, Dr. Scott Hitt, and all the members
of the President's Advisory Council. I think most of them were
actually sitting in the overflow room so the rest of you can be here.
But I thank them -- we heard them; let's give them a hand, maybe they
can hear us. (Applause.)
I thank Dr. Varmus, Dr. Kessler, all the others here who
are involved in dramatic effort that they are making in the fight
against AIDS. Most of all, I thank all of you for coming and for
giving us a chance to have this first-ever White House Conference on
HIV and AIDS.
So much has been said by the speakers who have spoken
before, and so much is still to be said by the panelists and perhaps
by some of you in the audience, but I'm going to do what I can to
shorten my remarks, because I want to spend most of my time listening
to you and focusing on where we go from here. But there are a few
things that I would like to say.
First of all, this is a disease, and we have never
before had a disease we could not conquer. We can conquer this.
(Applause.) I believe that -- in my lifetime, we've eliminated small
pox from the planet and polio from our hemisphere. We can do better,
and we can do better until we prevail.
The threat of AIDS, just the very threat of it, has
changed the lives of millions of people. And you heard from the talk
about prevention, about which I want to say more in a moment, it
needs to change the lives of millions of more Americans. It has
taken too many friends and loved ones from every one of us in this
room. For millions of people it has shaken their very faith in the
future.