Government
House Okays $50 billion for fighting AIDS in foreign countries
By Ben Wasserman
Apr 3, 2008 - 3:42:45 PM

THURSDAY April 3, 2008 (Foodconsumer.org) -- The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday voted 308 to 116 and passed a bill to donate $50 billion of dollars to help fight AIDS in Africa and other countries, Reuters reported.

President Bush had intimately proposed $30 billion and the House added $20 billion to make it $50 billion in total to support AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria programs over the next five years. The first five-year initiative started with $15 billion.

The Senate was also reportedly ready to pass a similar bill.

The initiative means to prevent HIV, which causes AIDS, treat infected people and provide care for children whose parents died from the disease.  The current program initiated by Bush in 2003 was said to provide support and treatments for 1.45 million people, according to Reuters.
 
The program provides support and drugs in 15 countries including Vietnam, Guyana, Haiti and 12 African countries.  The bill extends support to 14 more countries in the Caribbean basin.

Critics said what the bill would incur was just too expensive. They argued that the country was barely able to take care of veterans and the elderly and there is no reason to pump so much money to support people in other countries.

Initially, one third of the funding is allotted to support a sexual abstinence education program as a way to fight HIV/AIDS, which was criticized by some Democrats and AIDS activists.

The current legislation calls instead for "balanced funding" for abstinence, fidelity and condom programs, according to Reuters.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican was cited as saying the bill would save millions of lives and help stabilize a key region of the world.

President Bush was said to see his effort in helping other countries fight AIDS and malaria as foreign policy successes in his presidency, which many believe has been tarnished by the unpopular war in Iraq.
 
California Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher was quoted as saying "It is terrible that millions of Africans are suffering AIDS. But we cannot afford such totally irrational generosity."

He added "We can't take care of our own veterans when they come home from the war. We can't take care of our elderly. We have people who can't take care of their own health needs and are at risk of losing their homes," quoted by Reuters.