Washington Blade - October 19, 2001
Lou Chibbaro Jr.
The Ryan White program, created by Congress in 1990, helps states and cities pay for medical treatment and social services for people with HIV and AIDS, including access to lifesaving drugs that prevent people with HIV from developing full-blown AIDS.
The House on Oct. 11 approved $112 million more for the Ryan White program compared to the current year as part of its version of the fiscal year 2002 budget for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Senate Appropriations Committee that same day approved an increase of $75 million for the fiscal 2002 Ryan White program.
The full Senate, which has yet to schedule a vote on the HHS budget, usually goes along with budgets approved by the Appropriations Committee.
The House also approved an $86 million increase in AIDS prevention programs for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, while the Senate appropriations panel approved an increase of $77.463 million for the CDC's AIDS prevention programs. Meanwhile, the Senate appropriations panel approved about $700 million more than the House for the National Institutes of Health, which oversees the nation's AIDS research programs.
A House-Senate conference committee will be assigned the task of reconciling the differences between the two legislative bodies.
INFO
AIDS Action
1906 Sunderland Place, NW
Washington, DC 20036
202-530-8030
www.aidsaction.org
National Association of People With AIDS
1413 K Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005
202-898-0414
U.S. Senate
Information line: 202-224-3121
In the budget he submitted to Congress in April, President Bush called for leaving the Ryan White budget the same as that for the current year. Officials with AIDS advocacy groups said the president's "flat" budget proposal for the Ryan White program would jeopardize the program's ability to provide AIDS drugs to people with low incomes who rely on the drugs to stay alive.
But shortly before the House voted on the HHS budget, the White House Office of National AIDS Policy indicated the president would support the $112 million increase in Ryan White funds proposed by Republican and Democratic leaders in the House.
Officials with AIDS Action, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that advocates on behalf of the nation's AIDS service groups, and the D.C.-based National Association for People With AIDS said they are calling on their members and supporters to contact their senators to ask them to support the higher funding level for the Ryan White program that the House approved.
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