House Approves AIDS Relief Expansion
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
WASHINGTON — A bipartisan coalition in the House voted yesterday to significantly expand a popular program aimed at combating HIV and AIDS around the world, renewing the president’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief by authorizing $50 billion — $20 billion more than the White House requested — over five years.
“There is a moral imperative to combat this epidemic,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat of California, said. “Few crises have called out more for sustained, constructive American leadership.”
Forty million people worldwide are believed to be HIV-positive, Ms. Pelosi said, and an estimated 20 million have died from the AIDS epidemic. Since the global AIDS initiative began in 2003, focusing on 15 countries primarily in sub-Saharan Africa, 30 million people have been tested or received counseling for HIV and 1.4 million have received anti-retroviral medications.
The legislation, which was approved 308-116, required compromise on both sides. Conservatives gave up demands that abstinence be the centerpiece of efforts to fight AIDS; the legislation approved mandates “balanced funding” to support an ABC strategy — Abstain from sex until marriage, Be faithful, and use Condoms.
