For Immediate Release
Media Contact:
Justin Burke -
213.201.1525
AIDS PROJECT LOS ANGELES SAYS BUSH GLOBAL AIDS BOOST
NEEDS TO COME HOME
June 4, 2007, Los Angeles, Calif. – AIDS Project Los Angeles (APLA) today welcomed President Bush’s call to increase funding to fight global AIDS over the next five years, but called for the administration’s international efforts to be matched by the same commitment to fight AIDS here at home.
In a Rose Garden briefing last week, the president asked Congress to reauthorize The United States Leadership against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act of 2003 when it expires next year. The Act established PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), a five-year program that has provided over $15 billion to 15 AIDS impacted countries around the world. PEPFAR also contributes funding to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Mr. Bush said he would ask Congress for $6 billion every year during the five years of the reauthorization.
“We give the president tremendous credit for increasing U. S. funding to fight AIDS around the world,” said Craig E. Thompson, executive director of APLA. “PEPFAR has been a shining success in this administration. Still, six billion a year for five years means the program will be flat-funded well into the next decade. That’s not enough to stem the tide of new infections worldwide, and provide care and treatment to those in need. The U.S. can do more.”
Some 40 million people are infected with HIV worldwide. In the U. S. over one million people are infected with HIV, while a quarter are unaware of their HIV status. The CDC estimates that more than 40,000 Americans are newly infected with HIV each year. The $2.1 billion a year Ryan White CARE Act, the largest single source of funding for HIV/AIDS, has been flat funded for most of the past six years.
“Domestic AIDS funding has been cut year after year since 2002,” Thompson said, “Yet we now see some populations in the U.S. with infection rates equal to the hardest hit countries in Africa. We cannot defeat AIDS, reduce new infections, and provide care and treatment to ever more people living with AIDS unless we increase funding to match the threat.”
The White House said the president’s proposal would fund treatment for 2.5 million people (about 1.1 million more than current funding); prevent more than 12 million new infections; and provide care for more than 12 million people, including five million orphans and vulnerable children.
By some estimates, PEPFAR will require $50 billion in new spending to provide care for those in need, and prevention for those at risk. APLA and other advocates are calling for an end to funding restrictions that inhibit the work of the program -- in particular a mandate that requires 30 percent of all PEPFAR prevention funding to go for abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. This prevention funding would be better spent on other evidence-based programs, including comprehensive sexual education HIV/AIDS programs.
APLA is also calling for an end to the “prostitution pledge” that requires agencies receiving PEPFAR funding to pledge to oppose sex work. This policy restricts “on the ground” agencies from working with at-risk populations of sex workers and their clients.
PEPFAR funding also cannot be used to provide injection drug users with clean needles and syringes. The ban, which applies to all federal appropriations at home and abroad, means that agencies cannot use these prevention methods, even in areas of the world where the epidemic is largely driven by drug use.
“AIDS is a catastrophe all over the world, including the U.S.,” Thompson said. “The epidemic will destabilize some countries and burden the hardest hit communities with explosive health care costs for decades to come.
“We have the money to do the job. Now we need the political will,” Thompson said. “And we need to be able to use every weapon in the arsenal to keep the epidemic from spiraling out of control.”
AIDS Project Los Angeles, one of the largest non-profit AIDS service organizations in the United States, provides bilingual direct services, prevention education and leadership on HIV/AIDS-related policy and legislation. Founded by four friends in 1982, APLA is a community-based, volunteer-supported organization with local, national and global reach. For more information, visit www.apla.org.
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