Senate, White House Reach Deal on Overseas AIDS Money
By Todd Zwillich
Originally published by Reuters Health, June 7, 2002
WASHINGTON (Reuters Health) — The US Senate approved a plan late Thursday to increase funding to fight the global HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Lawmakers passed a measure that adds $200 million in assistance for nations affected most deeply by the spread of AIDS. Language in the measure concentrates the funds on programs to reduce mother-to-child transmission of HIV infection.
Lawmakers approved the money as part of a $31 billion emergency military and homeland defense spending bill. However, the $200 million for HIV/AIDS was far less than many lawmakers said they wanted to provide.
Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN), the measure's chief sponsor, said that he originally planned to propose an increase of $500 million for the Global Fund on HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and Tuberculosis. But the proposal was pared back after President Bush threatened to veto the spending bill for being too large.
Instead, Frist struck a deal with the White House that lowered additional spending to $200 million. Frist said that the White House will announce next week "a multiyear plan" to provide more money to fight AIDS overseas.
The White House has agreed to a plan that would provide a "comparable amount to $500 million" more for foreign AIDS work, said a Republican aide.
Senators voted 79-14 to approve the spending. The package gives the president the discretion to spend the money either on the Global Fund or on other government AIDS programs. It also requires the president to find funds from private sources or from foreign governments to match any of the money that is not sent to the global fund.
Frist said the strategy was a way for Congress to help "leverage" more non-US government donations to the overseas AIDS fight. Lawmakers rejected an earlier proposal by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) to add $500 million directly to the Global Fund.
But Durbin's amendment was turned back when senators voted that the money did not qualify as an emergency for the bill.
"Is there anyone following this debate who can question whether the global AIDS epidemic is an emergency?," Dubin asked on the Senate floor.
Congress has already sent $200 million to the fund this year. In all, the US will spend about $900 million on overseas HIV and AIDS work in 2002.
Frist acknowledged that the $500 million rejected by the Senate "is too little for where we need to go." But he said that the $200 million and additional money from the coming White House initiative would be "more focused" on mother-to-child transmission, which studies show can be effectively reduced with the use of antiretroviral drugs such as AZT and nevirapine.
Approximately 40 million people worldwide are currently infected with HIV or have AIDS. Approximately 28 million of them live in Sub-Saharan Africa, and another 6 million live in Southeast Asia, according to UN figures.
The spending bill also provides $387 million for bioterrorism response efforts and $1 billion for hiring, training and equipping medical and emergency first responders.
It must now be reconciled with a similar House version, which provides less overall spending for the Global Fund.
