UPDATE II: in the comments Woody points out that there will be an important interview sometime after 8PM on CNN
---
today Bush signed the 5 year reauthorization bill for global HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria programs.
As the Washington Post reported:
It overturns an HIV travel and immigration ban that was in place since 1992.
Senator Kerry was largely responsible for getting this amendment added to the Senate version of the bill before it left the Foreign Relations Committee, and so, THANK YOU Kerry. Apparently, it's up to the President to actually implement this change though.
over the jump I wanna mention some of the problems with the global health bill and mention some resources for people to engage in domestic AIDS activism.
As has been widely reported over the past couple of days, CDC statistics show that over half of HIV/AIDS cases in the US are among African Americans. A new report by the Black AIDS Institute was the source for most of the recent stories y'all have seen.
FYI, the Black AIDS Institute and several other organizations have been calling for the US to adopt a National AIDS Strategy, similar to what the US requires from other countries before we give them money for their programs. Without goals and a national plan of action, there will likely be little progress in fighting HIV/AIDS. So please check out http://www.nationalaidsstrategy.org/ which is supported by over 100 US organizations, and note that Senator Obama supports the creation and implementation of a National AIDS Strategy, whereas McCain has remained silent on this issue.
Unsurprisingly, McCain failed to respond to a questionnaire seeking out his position on various HIV/AIDS issues, whereas Obama obviously responded. See: http://www.aidsvote.org/...
Besides the creation of a National AIDS Strategy (paging Senator McCain!!), advocates and concerned citizens need to put an end to abstinence-only-until-marriage sex-ed programs in our public schools. We are in fact harming our kids health by pushing this intolerant approach to age appropriate sex-ed in our schools.
There are of course many issues to address domestically, but I think those two are a good start, where there are substantial differences on the candidates' positions. For example, McCain's refusal to agree that condoms prevent the sexual transmission of HIV, which is sort of similar to his well publicized refusal to answer the Viagra vs contraception question. To contrast, Obama:
Introduced in January 2007, the Prevention First Act will increase funding for family planning and comprehensive sex education that teaches both abstinence and safe sex methods. The Act will also end insurance discrimination against contraception, improve awareness about emergency contraception, and provide compassionate assistance to rape victims.
Time to move on to the global health bill...
So, previously, when the Senate was considering the bill (S.2731), I wrote a couple of diaries that were rescued, which asked Kossacks to sign on to a petition from the ONE Campaign and to lobby their Senators. Thanks to the efforts of dedicated activists, Senator McCain actually co-sponsored the legislation, which meant that it was guaranteed to pass... obviously though, Senator McCain's co-sponsorship means that this bill would not be offensive to religious conservatives and would not fully serve the interests of the affected populations.
The fact that conservatives feel that they won a battle is reflected in this article from an anti-choice website:
Of significant concern to pro-life and pro-family activists is the fact that the new legislation scraps a former requirement that one-third of the 20% of PEPFAR's funds allocated for AIDS-prevention should be spent on abstinence programs.
Earlier this year Democrats managed to remove that requirement, and to replace it instead with what is said to be a "compromise." The new legislation requires simply that, should funding for abstinence programs fall below a certain level, a report should be made to Congress justifying the decrease in funding.
Republican Chris Smith [R-NJ], well-know to pro-life and pro-family advocates for his heroic defense of life and family, has given his support to the revised version of PEPFAR. Smith and other pro-life legislators valiantly fought against the Democratic majority to improve the legislation and were successful in gaining significant concessions. "On the prevention side, the legislation requires that the Global AIDS Coordinator provide balanced funding for sexual transmission prevention including abstinence, delay of sexual debut, monogamy, fidelity and partner reduction," explained Rep. Smith in a statement to the House in April.
the reauthorization bill was an improvement in this area because now the abstinence-only spending requirement has become a suggestion that allows the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator flexibility to not meet the target...
Besides hurting women in developing countries (and harming our HIV prevention efforts) through the continued promotion of abstinence-only policies, the bill also continues the prostitution loyalty oath and from my understanding, HIV/AIDS funding may no longer be exempt from the global gag rule, depending on how the text of the legislation in implemented...sigh.
So this brings me to my concluding point, which is that we have plenty of work to do in order to make our global health programs better and less harmful to women's health. We need to get more and better Democrats elected, and we must prepare ourselves to hold their feet to the fire.
The International Center for Research on Women has more detailed criticisms of the global health bill available through their website, and the Center for Health and Gender Equity has a great website called Pepfar Watch. I'd like to encourage everybody to sign-up to receive the rare email from Pepfar Watch so that we can be ready to create change from the bottom up, regarding these global women's health issues.
UPDATE: I wanted to also point to Deoliver47's diary from this morning. "US ignoring blacks with AIDS?"