Sen. Burr, don’t hold up HIV/AIDS legislation
I’m a member of the ONE Campaign, an advocacy organization dedicated to fighting global AIDS and extreme poverty around the world.
It disturbed me when it came to my attention that Sen. Richard Burr is putting a hold on a bill (PEPFAR) that would bring life-saving medicine to millions of people in need. Preventing HIV/AIDS from spreading and helping those with this disease are very pressing issues that cannot wait to be thought over and discussed at length.
Five years ago, PEPFAR was able to help 1.4 million people with HIV/AIDS get medicine and treatment. Today, PEPFAR’s time has run out and it is being considered for reauthorization and expansion. This process is being held up in the Senate. The House of Representatives passed the bill in April with a hardy 308-116 vote.
I urge Sen. Burr to lift this hold and to pass this bill quickly. Lives are at stake here; what more needs to be said?
Jordan A. Baker
High Point
Comments (2)
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Perhaps Senator Burr is aware that PEPFAR , like most other government programs, has become a bureaucratic boondoggle where the funding requested for the original $15B five year period has now magically grown to require a $50B budget for the next five years...surprise, surprise.
Mr. Baker, can you show me the part of the constitution that requires the US government to provide medicine to anyone...much less on a global scale?
Thanks in advance.
Posted on June 7, 2008 7:06 AM
"Lives are at stake here; what more needs to be said?"
No for one. We aren't discussing voluntary donations. How can it cost $15,000,000,000 to tell folks "You might not want to sleep around so much- it's not healthy" and "There, there" when you end up being right? Interestingly it's the same word that would've kept the situation from becoming the problem it has.
Neat how we've given AIDS and malaria the same weight:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Fund
Cuba got it right in their initial quarantine response (did Michael Moore cover their government mandated health AIDS isolation in Sicko?):
Quote- "There are norms and values that you have to respect."
But the evidence is that the tactic worked.
Cuba now has one of the very lowest Aids infection rates in the world.
End quote.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3154803.stm
That first line is a dandy, isn't it?
Also fun is to realize that we can't remedy the AIDS problem without collapsing entire economies that have come to depend on the input of US taxpayer cash. The only goal we can realistically have is to continue the problem at current levels (see War on Poverty). Keep that idea in mind when Obama uses $150B to create "green collar" jobs. The much-lamented problems can never be solved or else people people working in "created" jobs will be unemployed. Try to recall the last time you heard a regulatory agency reducing their level of concern because they fixed something...
Roger
Posted on June 7, 2008 10:37 AM