Journalist Glenn Kessler examines recent statements made by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on the potential impact the proposed budget cuts for FY11 could have on PEPFAR in the Washington Post's "The Fact Checker" blog.

Clinton's "statement that, 'Hundreds of thousands of people will be cut off of their life-sustaining drugs. Others will never have access to them,'" is "certainly alarming," and suggestive "that some of the 3.2 million people currently on antiviral drugs would lose access to them. If true, that would be headline news, since AIDS groups had privately said that people currently on the drugs would not lose their access," Kessler says, concluding,  "A State Department official tried to argue that Clinton's language referred to 400,000 people who are expected to get onto a drug regimen but who would be turned away after the spending cuts. Nice try. Clinton clearly is referring to that 400,000 in her next sentence, when she says 'others will never have access to them'" (3/7).

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