An Urgent DIRELAND Alert: CLINTON, SCHUMER, OBAMA JOIN TO FREEZE AIDS TREATMENT AND CARE
The Senate is about to freeze AIDS treatment and care for another year with a reauthorization bill for the Ryan White Act, introduced tonight by Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and co-sponsored by Senators Clinton and Schumer, Senators Menendez (D-NJ), Obama (D-IL), Durbin (D-IL), and Nelson (D-FL). This noxious bill, as it now stands, would turn back the clock on the Ryan White Act.
Write your Senators today-- tell them this bill must be amended to meet the life-or-death needs of people with AIDS. And here are Talking Points, courtesy of Housing Works, the feisty AIDS service organization whose work I much admire:
For too long, people living with HIV/AIDS and frontline AIDS service providers have all made do with hopelessly inadequate funding. As of last week, nearly 200 people were on the wait list for drugs in South Carolina. Meanwhile, in New York, the over 125,000 people living with HIV/AIDS stand to loose $78 million in Title II funding over the next four years under the current Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Modernization Act of 2006 (the bill to reauthorize Ryan White).
The "new" Ryan White cuts funding relied on by PLWAs, primarily in the original epicenters of AIDS. The "old" Ryan White shortchanges people newly infected, primarily living in rural areas and the Deep South. This geographic splitting is partisan politics at play. We will not sacrifice people living with HIV/AIDS anywhere in the country to bolster anyone's ratings at the polls this November.
http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2006/09/an_urgent_direl.htmlWhat's Up With This?