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The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday voted 29-1 to pass a $48.69 billion draft bill to “fund the State Department and foreign affairs activities in fiscal 2010,” CQ reports. “Global health programs would receive $7.8 billion, which is $434 million more than fiscal 2009 funding and $178 million more than the administration request. The bill would provide $5.7 billion to fight HIV/AIDS and $700 million for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria,” CQ writes. The amount allocated to the Global Fund exceeds Obama’s request by $100 million but is “in line with fiscal 2009 funding,” according to the news service.

The bill would provide $628.5 million for family planning programs, including $50 million for the U.N. Population Fund. The Senate panel also adopted an amendment by Rep. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., that “would make permanent Obama’s decision earlier this year to revoke a policy prohibiting U.S. aid to overseas organizations that promote or perform abortions,” CQ reports (Webber, 7/9).

“The policy in effect under President George W. Bush had banned U.S. taxpayer money … from going to international family planning groups that either offer abortions or provide information, counseling or referrals about abortion as a family planning method,” according to AP/Google.com. This amendment would give the Obama policy “the force of law. That means the next Republican president would not be able to put the ban back in place with the stroke of a pen as has been recent practice,” writes the newswire (Taylor, 7/9).

The Senate Appropriations Committee’s press release includes a break down of the bill’s funding (7/9).

The House of Representatives on Thursday passed a “$48.8 billion spending bill to bolster U.S. foreign policy and aid efforts,” the Washington Post reports (Pelofsky & Cornwell, 7/9).

This information was reprinted from globalhealth.kff.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Global Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for email delivery at globalhealth.kff.org.

© Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

The National AIDS Fund (NAF) praised the decision by a House subcommittee to remove language from an appropriations bill that for the past twenty years has banned the use of federal funds for syringe exchange programs (SEPs).

Since 1988, the U.S. government has prevented local and state public health authorities from using federal funds for SEPs, which studies have shown to be effective in reducing HIV infection rates among injection drug users (IDUs). On Friday, the House Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies decided to remove the language that has blocked the funding.

“With Friday’s decision, the full Congress now has the opportunity to base health policy on science-based evidence that has clearly illustrated that syringe exchange programs are effective in reducing HIV incidence and do not promote drug use,” said Michael Rhein, Director of Programs at NAF. “The National AIDS Fund has been a longtime supporter of syringe exchange as a means to prevent the transmission of HIV and other bloodborne diseases.”

NAF is a founding partner of the Syringe Access Fund, a national grant-making collaboration of private funders, created in 2004. Beginning in 2009, the National AIDS Fund will administer the Syringe Access Fund, which has granted over $6 million in funds to support access to sterile syringes.

U.S. Rep. David Obey (D-WI), chairman of the subcommittee and also chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said, “Scientific studies have documented that needle exchange programs, when implemented as part of a comprehensive prevention strategy, are an effective public health intervention for reducing AIDS/HIV infections and do not promote drug use. The judgment we make is that it is time to lift this ban and let State and local jurisdictions determine if they want to pursue this approach.”

“There have been numerous government-sponsored reviews of the research on syringe exchange. Those studies concluded that syringe availability programs ‘are an effective public health intervention that reduces the transmission of HIV and Hepatitis C and does not encourage the use of illegal drugs,’” says the National AIDS Fund’s President & CEO, Kandy Ferree. “In fact, syringe access programs are often the gateway for getting hard-to-reach individuals into HIV testing and treatment services.”

IDUs represent 20% of the more than 1 million people living with HIV/AIDS in the U.S. and the majority of the 3.2 million Americans living with hepatitis C infection. Injection drug use accounts for over 14%, according to the Centers for Disease Control, of the 56,000 new HIV infections in the U.S. every year-or nearly 9,000 people.

Source
The National AIDS Fund

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Twenty-six people representing a coalition of five HIV/AIDS groups from Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and New York were arrested on Thursday for unlawfully demonstrating in the Capitol rotunda, the AP/Washington Post reports (7/9). According to Politico, the protestors were demanding “congressional action on three AIDS priorities: the end of the federal ban on syringe exchange, increased housing funding for [people living with AIDS] and significant increases in U.S. international AIDS contributions” (McGrane, 7/9). The group contends that the Obama “administration’s budget proposal ‘essentially flatlines global AIDS funding,’” CNN.com reports. In a statement, Omolola Adele-Oso of DC Fights Back, said, “HIV is not in recession. So why are we bailing out the bankers with $9 trillion, but breaking promises to fund life-saving AIDS programs in the U.S. and around the world at a fraction of that cost?” (7/9).

This information was reprinted from globalhealth.kff.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Global Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for email delivery at globalhealth.kff.org.

© Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.