Africa Action
March 12, 2008
A Key Moment to Act
Support A Strong HIV/AIDS Senate Bill!
Write your Senator Now!
Dear Friend,
On Thursday, March 13th the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will sit to mark up the most important bill in the fight against global HIV/AIDS. Africa Action encourages you to immediately write to your Senator to urge them to support a bill that will make U.S. global HIV/AIDS policy more effective and ensure true U.S. global leadership in the fight against the pandemic.
Last Friday, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden, Jr (D-DE) and Ranking Member Richard G. Lugar (R-IN) introduced the bill S 2731, officially known as the “Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde United States Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008.” This legislation is not only a huge leap forward from Bush’s unproductive policy, which for the past five years severely limited the U.S. response to global AIDS, but it is also a clear testimony that popular pressure works in shaping U.S. policy.
While the current bill is a big improvement over the past 5 years of U.S. global HIV/AIDS policy, several areas still need our strong pushing in order to produce the best possible law. These include:
* Increasing the treatment target to 4 million individuals from the current 3 million;
* Increasing the total funding to $59 billion to meet the public health recommendation of $50 billion for HIV/AIDS programs alone and still include the necessary $4 billion and $5 billion for tuberculosis and malaria programs;
* Integrating HIV/AIDS and reproductive health/family planning programs so that women have easy access to effective HIV prevention services to prevent babies being born with HIV; and
* Removing the requirement that groups must have policies that oppose prostitution to be eligible for U.S. funding. While we do not support prostitution, it is important that our HIV/AIDS policy be comprehensive and reaches out even to prostitutes in order to most effectively prevent the spread of HIV.
The fight against HIV/AIDS remains the defining struggle of our time, as the pandemic claims more than two million lives a year, with more than three quarters of the victims in Africa. The devastating impact of the pandemic on families, communities and nations makes the disease the biggest global threat to human security and development. Only a concerted global effort will succeed in stopping this deadly scourge that has claimed more than 20 million lives globally in the last 3 decades.
As the richest nation in the world, the U.S. must play a leadership role in ending the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Africa, the hardest hit part of the world is incapacitated to deal with a crisis of this magnitude on its own because of the legacy of slavery, colonialism and current global trade policies and power relations that work together to impoverish and debilitate the African continent. As the chief beneficiary of some of the historical injustices that ruined Africa, the U.S. has not only a moral, but also a historical responsibility to support the African continent in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
It is the complacency of our leadership that resulted in HIV/AIDS blowing out of control to become the menace it is today. This is time to let our leaders know that we care about global HIV/AIDS, we care about the plight of humanity, we care about our Africa brothers and sisters, we care about our fellow Americans who falling victim to this pandemic AND WE DEMAND a bill from senate that will be effective in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
Speak out now! – Be heard! – Write to your Senator now!
Sincerely;
Staff @ Africa Action