House OKs $1.3 Billion for AIDS Education

The House of Representatives voted to spend $1.3 billion to fight the global AIDS epidemic through bilateral and multinational programs aimed at education, prevention, treatment and research. The funds, approved by voice vote yesterday, are double what is budgeted for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, but House International Relations Committee Chair Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), said the United States has a "responsibility to lead the world in confronting one of the most compelling humanitarian and moral challenges facing us today."

The Hyde bill, cosponsored by Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the committee, allows $750 million for an international AIDS trust fund and $485 million in bilateral aid, mainly through non-governmental organizations, for education, treatment and prevention programs. It endorses spending $50 million for a pilot program to help developing countries obtain pharmaceuticals and antiviral therapies. "The AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria pandemics constitute a crisis of biblical proportions in Africa and put the very survival of the continent at stake," said Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.)

Dr. Paul Zeitz, executive director of the Global AIDS Alliance, welcomed the Hyde bill as a good framework for how money should be spent. He cautioned, though, that it "doesn't really mean much in terms of money" because the foreign aid spending bill working its way through Congress, which determines the actual budget, sets aside less than $500 million for bilateral AIDS programs. House aides said they were confident that passage of the bill would encourage lawmakers drawing up the foreign aid bill to increase AIDS spending. The Senate has not acted on the AIDS package. Zeitz said his group hoped that the House action would set the stage for the administration to back HR 2069, a $1 billion emergency spending bill to help fight AIDS.

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