Last month President Obama released his detailed budget for Fiscal year 2010. Unfortunately, his budget falls short of what is needed to reach goals outlined in the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) reauthorization bill PHR members helped pass last year.
We need your help to make sure Congress and President Obama fulfill their commitment to fight AIDS and other global health crises. This month PHR members are meeting with their member of Congress during their July 4th recess to ask for full PEPFAR funding.
Meeting with your Member of Congress is really easy, and we’ve developed a guide to help you through the process. You can download the guide here and a sample meeting request letter here.
We also have some talking points you can use during the meetings, to tell your Members of Congress why funding PEPFAR is so important, and some stories from the field of our partners in Uganda. Download them here, and here.
Failing to keep our promise to fight AIDS would be “recipe for chaos.” We are hearing from our colleagues on the ground, including Ugandan HIV/AIDS pioneer Peter Mugyeni, MD, that PEPFAR clinics are already having to turn away patients medically eligible for treatment.
With health professional advocacy we can ensure the US keeps its commitments to fight global AIDS.
Dear Brother and Sister Human Rights Activists, We who want all of God’s children to have the gift of life grieve with all of the needless deaths in this our world. At least some of us would like the present billions being spent on killing being spent by our Government on saving peoples lives. There would then be enough money to dramatically reduce the six million needless child deaths each year, feed the hungry of Africa, and provide the drugs and medical services needed by people with AIDS if they are not to die. I think the President is correct – on two grounds – for limit the expansion of the moneys spent on treating people with AIDS. 1) Equal amounts of money effectively spent could likely reduce the deaths of 10 children or one AIDS patient. 2) The number of youths becoming AIDS patients is not decreasing – some 6,000 a day. I fear that many are thinking that AIDS is no big deal, that the US will provide all they need if they become infected. We need to look at our own sins. What is being recommended by the medical community for AIDS is the adoption of the extremely inefficient US practice of medicine, based on drugs and high priced physicians, which leaves many without health care. I suggest that the first thing PHR should do – concerned with health in Africa – is to oppose the AMA’s opposition to proposals for a Government health insurance plan, fearing they will lose money. David