U.S. to Triple Global Funding on AIDS, Increasing to $50 Billion Over Five Years

Where in the Constitution does the House Foreign Affairs Committee find the power to give a dollar to an AIDS program, let alone increase the funding by $50 billion over five years? This is sickening:

The Foreign Affairs Committee’s voice vote on the plan to approve spending of an average $10 billion annually over the next five years came hours after lawmakers and the White House reached a compromise on some of the policy issues, including spending on abstinence programs, that had held up action on the legislation.

The bill extends the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which authorized spending of $15 billion total for five years for prevention and care programs in sub-Saharan Africa and other regions hit by the epidemic. That act, passed in 2003, expires in September.

Bush is going to sign this craptastic waste of money, because he is a compassionate conservative. Compassionate to who? The American taxpayer? Not in my book. He is no conservative where spending is concerned. This is just money down the toilet.

Foreign aid is already a colossal waste of money, but this is made even worse when you look at how much the world is already spending on AIDS:

In 2004, 21 per cent of all health aid was allocated to HIV, up from 8 per cent in 2000, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. It could now exceed a quarter of all health aid and is the only disease to have its own United Nations agency, UNAIDS.

In 2001, HIV/Aids represented 5 per cent of the burden of disease in low and middle-income countries as measured by disability-adjusted life years lost, a measure combining reduced life expectancy and quality of life. This compares with 3 per cent each for tuberculosis and malaria, and 6 per cent each for respiratory infections and perinatal conditions.

Are HIV interventions so much more cost effective to justify this disproportionate spending? Probably not. Comparable costs per death prevented are lower for immunisations, malaria, traffic accidents, childhood illnesses and tuberculosis than for HIV. Moreover, HIV incidence (new infections per year) has peaked already in Africa, a fact not widely promoted by the industry.

Now look at our share:

While the US has only 7% of the world’s population and has less than 1% of all HIV/AIDS cases, it provides more than two thirds of AIDS research funding worldwide.

So why are we tripling our funding for this disease? Why are we giving American tax dollars to other countries at all? I can only shake my head and say that the homosexual community must have a powerful lobby.

Now, I know there are some bleeding heart liberals out there reading this and they are wondering how I can be so heartless (or maybe this is what they expect from us heartless conserva-tarians). Let me explain to you why, using something liberals are allergic to - facts:

• Heart Disease: The number one cause of death in the United States, 21 million new cases of heart disease are reported each year, with 724,859 Americans dying from heart disease in 1998.[5] The National Institutes for Health (NIH) will fund the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute at an estimated $2.6 billion–or $3,541 for each death from heart, lung, or blood disease.

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• Cancer: The second leading cause of death in the United States, in 1999 549,838 people died of cancer. The NIH expects to fund the National Cancer Institute at an estimated $4.2 billion in 2002–or $7,713 for each death from cancer.

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• Breast Cancer: With 180,000 new cases each year, breast cancer is the leading cause of death among American women who are forty to fifty-five years of age. Each year about 46,000 women die of the disease. The NIH is currently spending $396 million on breast cancer research–or $8,608 per death from the disease.

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• Diabetes: According to the CDC, seven million Americans have diabetes–the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. In 1999 64,751 died from complications associated with diabetes. The NIH has budgeted $450 million for diabetes research–or $6,949 per death from diabetes.
• AIDS: By comparison, in 2000, 23,932 people were diagnosed with AIDS. In that year, 8,867 people died from the disease. According to the NIH Office of AIDS Research, $2.5 billion has been proposed for AIDS research programs within the NIH in fiscal year 2002, with that figure increasing to more than $2.7 billion in 2003. The current (2002) budget amounts to an astounding $265,591 per AIDS death. This figure does not include the public monies spent to treat AIDS through federal Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources (CARE) Act. Funding for CARE is currently $1.8 billion–an additional $202,999 per AIDS death.

According to a 2004 report, “In 2000, 4.5 million Americans were suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease. This number is expected to increase nearly three-fold to 13.2 million by 2050 (Hebert, et al.). By contrast, the number of people with AIDS is less than 400,000.” Yet the FAIR Foundation noted at the time:

NIH research money budgeted per death is $162,790 for AIDS versus $10,245 for Alzheimer’s.

We already overspend on AIDS. Stop throwing money down the toilet.

Call the House Foreign Affairs Committee at 202-225-5021. Call them and politely give them your opinion.