Welcome to Our Community
.
Mary Fisher speaks about
HIV-positive/AIDS as a U.N.
special representative.
Acting With Passion
Mary Fisher reflects on her father,
her AIDS activism, her art.
Keri Guten Cohen
Story Development Editor
M
ary Fisher came home to
Detroit to kick off the U.N.-
sponsored 2006 Global
Coalition on Women & AIDS Tour
she's doing with three other HIV-posi-
tive women from other countries. She
spent last Friday night at Temple Israel,
delivering a powerful d'var Torah to a
crowd of more than 300 about her call
to AIDS activism. Fisher was diagnosed
as HIV-positive in 1991
and delivered a landmark
speech about AIDS in
1992 at the Republican
national convention
in Houston.
Fisher, 58, lives in
West Palm Beach,
Fla., with her sons,
Max, 18, and Zachary,
16. She is an author, art-
ist, activist and the daughter of late
philanthropist and financier Max M.
Fisher and his wife, Marjorie, who
lives in Franklin. She also founded the
Mary Fisher Clinical AIDS Research
and Education Fund at the University
of Alabama in Birmingham. Fisher
talked with the Jewish News before a
speech June 8 at the Kresge Foundation
in Troy.
ability to do what I do. I do get tired
and have to stop and recharge."
Why the emphasis on women
and girls with. HIV/AIDS?
"Women and girls are being dispro-
portionately affected, here and in
Third World countries. They have no
voice. They are disenfranchised. I am
a woman. I can share because we have
the same disease. Basically, we are sis-
ters, family.
"We can encourage governments
to keep — and put — girls in school.
Education is a great prevention tool.
They can learn ABC (abstainance,
being faithful, condoms), but some
can't abstain because they have no
choice. Many, if not most, women in the
world contract the disease in marriage.
"We have the science to stop mother-
child transfer of HIV/AIDS, and we
have made significant strides with that
in some places, but there's much more
to be done. It's critical to support the
mothers and daughters and help them
get the education that can make them
more economically self-sufficient, give
them more power in their families and
cultures. A woman who has no power
is a woman at risk."
How is your health?
Since your 1992 speech at the
Republican convention, how do
you feel U.S. presidents have
done regarding AIDS?
"It's really good. I'm taking a cocktail
of five different medications. I'm very
fortunate they allow me the energy and
"George W. Bush has done more glob-
ally than others, but he's fallen down
locally. Clinton is doing great stuff
Fisher on page 22
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June 15 • 2006
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