Bush and AIDS

George W. Bush's surprise State of the Union announcement of $10 billion in new funding for the global AIDS crisis was masterful, lending an air of humanitarian internationalism to his bellicose foreign policy. The White House, however, offered scant information on its Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, and the all-important details will have to be worked out by Congress in the weeks ahead. In the meantime, AIDS activists responded with a mixture of guarded optimism and suspicion, and rightly so. Bush's announcement does mark a significant shift, for the first time embracing treatment as a viable and legitimate goal, as well as, apparently, the use of generic drugs. But for Bush's words to translate into an effective AIDS plan, the Administration will have to reverse course on a number of its policies.

Of primary concern is the Administration's record of duplicity on AIDS funding. As Africa Action director Salih Booker points out, the White House uses "Arthur Andersen-style accounting methods, counting old money several times and using projections for sums that don't yet exist" when announcing "new" aid packages. Indeed, according to the Wall Street Journal, Bush's "budget for 2004 would reduce by about the same amount the funding that aides had said would be sought for a separate development-aid initiative for poor nations." Moreover, Bush's new funding is spread over five years and begins in 2004 with only a modest increase over prior levels--less than what was authorized by the Frist-Kerry bill, which passed the Senate last year only to be scuttled by the White House.

This isn't the first AIDS smoke-and-mirrors ploy from this Administration. In June Bush announced to great fanfare a $500 million initiative to reduce mother-to-child HIV transmission in Africa. But just weeks earlier he had personally intervened to reduce the mother-to-child funds in a bill sponsored by, of all people, Jesse Helms. The treatment-access group Health GAP reports that this initiative has yet to receive any funding and is tied up in budget negotiations.

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