Editorial On Global AIDS Program

Main Category: HIV / AIDS
Also Included In: Women's Health / Gynecology
Article Date: 04 Mar 2008 - 8:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   view / write opinions   rate article

The New York Times published an editorial on Friday supporting bipartisan compromise legislation approved by the House Foreign Affairs Committee that authorizes $50 billion for the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief over the next five years. The editorial calls money to train new health care workers over the next five years to care for people living with HIV a "farsighted move" that is "at best a start on easing the severe shortage."

The editorial also notes that the removal of some of the "ideological blinders" that have "long undermined" PEPFAR "will be a welcome strengthening of a foreign aid program that was already one of the shining accomplishments of the Bush administration." It labels the earlier requirement that one-third of the funds used for prevention services be spent on abstinence as "the most troublesome ideological constraint" and suggests that it has been "greatly eased" because the bill calls for a "balanced" prevention program that would "promote abstinence until marriage and fidelity thereafter, as well as condoms."  The bill "requires countries to report if abstinence and fidelity funding falls below a certain percentage, but it sets no firm percentage that has to be met." The editorial adds that although some Republican lawmakers are "grumbling over" the funding increase, "it is important that Congress appropriate the full $50 billion if possible" (New York Times, 2/29).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women's Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women's Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.

© 2007 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.