Obama's Global AIDS Grade: D+

[avalonofmists]

Our piggy bank is empty!!


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-kavanagh/obamas-global-aids-grade_b_375041.html


Obama's Global AIDS Grade: D+



Matthew Kavanagh


Today is World AIDS Day--the 21st World AIDS Day I believe. And there is much to celebrate. The global response to AIDS is beginning to work: death rates are falling, those with access to AIDS drugs are living health lives and returning to the work of building strong communities.

Yet the crisis continues: new WHO data released a couple weeks ago show that the leading killer of women of reproductive age worldwide is HIV. We've only reached about a third of those in immediate need of life-saving treatment. Our progress is so fragile.

The Obama administration celebrated its first World AIDS Day yesterday with an announcement that the International AIDS Conference would come to Washington, DC in 2012 because the horrendously unjust ban on people living with HIV traveling to the US would be lifted. The lifting of the ban is, of course, good news: the very least the administration could do was stop overt discrimination that would be illegal if practiced against U.S. citizens.
...............

Where is the $50 billion for global AIDS promised by President Obama, Vice President Biden, and Secretary Clinton when they were campaigning for our votes? The 2010 budget certainly didn't have it.

Where's the promise to double the number of people on AIDS treatment around the world they pledged? With no new money we're hearing reports from Uganda and Nigeria of people being turned away from clinics because doctors cannot afford to start them on life-saving treatment.

And so on World AIDS Day activists have put together a report card, and the result is not pretty: a D+.


http://healthgap.org/press/wad09_report_card_pr.htm

But the Obama/Biden/Clinton team can turn this grade around. The seeds of success are all there: strong, bold leadership, a belief in human rights and the capacity of wealthy nations to do good in the world, and a renewed commitment to global engagement. They have promised a Global Health Initiative centered around women. As the leading cause of death and disease among women, HIV has to be the place to start and Obama can signal a break from the Bush era by eliminating ideologically driven prevention programs that fail women and standing up to drug companies to drive down prices of AIDS treatment. But to succeed, they must fully embrace AIDS treatment to ensure the mothers, doctors, farmers, and teachers are alive to build the next generation............

[Writer]

1. After 10 months in office, bailing out a near depression economy and fighting for health care reform

Fuck this.

[FrenchieCat]

2. Pile-on Maneuver - Grade F

Should have waited till tomorrow for stronger impact.

That's when those who will want to preen in their Utopian ideological sun,
will attend the intellectual fashion show that will be DU,
and where the choir will sing to the choir about death, despair,
and try to outdo each other on how condescendingly they can describe this President
and his supporters.

Timing is everything.

[dionysus]

3. YOU WARMONGERING CORPOROCRAT!!11!!

how'd i do?

;)

[vaberella]

4. What is this shit?! Didn't they hear the press conference yesterday?!

Obama is increasing funding it was already announced. Not to mention in the Health care reform bill there are provisions that address those people afflicted with AIDS and AIDS in disadvantaged communities to address the issues that concern them.

I'm not understanding this article. It's full of crap.

[HamdenRice]

5. As Ronald Reagan once said, "facts are stupid things". So it is with doomers, haters, et al.

[avalonofmists]

6. Here is the full report.....

its a pdf file. please forgive the formatting.

http://healthgap.org/press/documents/WADreportcard.pdf



http://healthgap.org/press/documents/WADreportcard.pdf


....U.S. FUNDING FOR GLOBAL AIDS:
Despite repeated public commitments to
expand funding for successful global
AIDS programs, the first budget request to
Congress prepared by President Obama,
for FY2010, would essentially flat-fund
U.S. global AIDS investments—this
budget request would not even keep pace
with the estimated rate of global medical inflation (4-10% for 2009).8 Specifically, President Obama requested a slight
increase in bilateral AIDS funding,
but requested a cut of the same
amount for the Global Fund. At the
country level, flatlining in Washington
is translating into actual budget cuts in
many programs, sending shock waves
through communities and calling into
question the sincerity of the
Administration’s commitment to
reaching the coverage levels promised
under the 2008 Lantos-Hyde Act,
which passed with overwhelming
bipartisan support and was cosponsored
by then-Senators Obama,
Clinton, and Biden. Administration
officials have signaled that they will likely request the same in FY2011 as 2010—a roughly 2% increase. These budget
requests contrast starkly with the funding trajectory required to conform with the Lantos-Hyde Act spending levels
President Obama promised to reach (see graph and text box, above)..........................................