[Ip-health] Sen Durbin: : Bush Global AIDS Proposal Falls Far Short of Meeting Need

[Mike Palmedo]

http://durbin.senate.gov/~durbin/new2001/press/2002/06/2002619703.html

UNITED STATES SENATOR  ILLINOIS
DICK DURBIN
P R E S S    R E L E A S E  

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Durbin: Bush Global AIDS Proposal Falls Far Short of Meeting Need
June 19, 2002 
[WASHINGTON, DC] – U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) today said the proposal
offered by President George W. Bush in response to the global AIDS
crisis does not go far enough in meeting the formidable challenge posed
by the disease.

Bush this morning said the U.S. would spend $500 million over the next
three years on the AIDS effort, $200 of which has already been provided
in the Emergency Supplemental appropriations bill recently passed by the
U.S. Senate. The U.S. effort will focus on the prevention of
transmission from mothers to their children.

"The Bush plan provides no funding beyond that already provided by the
Senate until the year 2004 – by which time nearly six million more men,
women and children will have died of the disease," Durbin said. "This
shell game misleads those who need our help and gives false hope to the
millions of people affected by AIDS. We ignore this crisis at our peril
and trivialize it to our detriment, for AIDS is a disease that knows no
borders." 

Some 40 million men, women and children are living with HIV and AIDS
worldwide, and more than 8,000 of them die each day. AIDS killed 2.3
million people in Africa in 2001, and the epidemic is devastating other
continents as well – almost one million new infections were reported in
Southeast Asia last year alone. In China, the total number of HIV
positive individuals has reached one million, and rates of infection in
the former Soviet Union are rising faster than anywhere else in the
world. The World Bank estimates more than 36 million people in India
alone may be infected within three years.

"The AIDS crisis is global, it is growing, and adequately addressing it
requires a real commitment, not token assistance," Durbin said.

Durbin last month offered an amendment to the Emergency Supplemental
appropriations bill that would have provided $500 million in Fiscal Year
2003 for the U.S. commitment to support comprehensive HIV/AIDS
prevention and treatment proposals. In addition to increasing the amount
of funding requested for the AIDS effort in President Bush's budget, the
measure also would have eliminated restrictions on the money could be
spent in order to combat the disease in all men, women and children
affected, regardless of how they were infected. 107.663 -30- 



-- 
Mike Palmedo
Consumer Project on Technology
Tel: 202-387-8030
Fax: 202-234-5176
P.O. Box 19367
Washington, DC 20036
mpalmedo@cptech.org