Washington Blade - February 18, 2009
Lou Chibbaro Jr.

But officials with AIDS advocacy groups said they were hopeful that funding for HIV prevention would be available from a $650 million "community-based prevention and wellness" fund that Congress approved as part of the final version of the $787 billion stimulus bill.

"It's not as much as we had hoped for, but we are very pleased that an overall pot of money that recognizes the importance of prevention and wellness is a part of this," said Ronald Johnson, deputy executive director of AIDS Action, a national HIV advocacy group.

Johnson and officials with other AIDS organizations noted that although the stimulus measure Congress approved Feb. 13 does not specifically allocate funds for HIV prevention or testing, it authorizes the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services to use his or her discretion on whether and how much of the $650 million "wellness" fund should be allocated for AIDS-related programs.

The Obama administration initially backed earlier versions of the stimulus bill approved by the full House and the Senate Appropriations Committee that called for specific funding allocations for HIV-related programs. The House version of the measure called for spending $335 million for programs associated with the prevention of HIV, viral hepatitis, other sexually transmitted diseases, and tuberculosis.

The Senate Appropriations Committee last month approved $400 million in funding for HIV and sexually transmitted disease-prevention programs as part of the Senate's version of the stimulus measure, known as the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Support for including AIDS-related funding as well as funding for other programs not considered to have a direct link to stimulating the economy began to unravel after Republicans and some Democrats in the Senate threatened to vote against the measure.

In an effort to insure the passage of a stimulus bill that Obama and Democratic congressional leaders said was necessary to stabilize the economy, the White House and congressional Democrats agreed to a number of Republican demands to reduce the scope of the stimulus measure.

The Senate responded by dropping its appropriation panel's $400 million spending allocation for HIV- and STD-related prevention programs. With a nod from the White House, Senate Democratic leaders also agreed to drop a separate provision from the Senate version that called for a $5.6 billion public health and wellness fund.

AIDS Action and other AIDS advocacy groups had hoped that some money from that fund could be used for HIV-prevention programs after the Senate dropped the $400 million specifically allocated for HIV prevention.

The Senate action prompted a coalition of advocacy groups - including AIDS Action and the AIDS Institute, both based in Washington, and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation of Los Angeles - to urge the House to push hard to retain the AIDS-related provisions in its own version of the stimulus bill.

In addition to calling for $350 million in prevention funds for HIV and STDs, the House bill called for a $3 billion "prevention and wellness fund" from which the HIV and STD programs were to be a part.

Late last week, these and other provisions of the stimulus bill were debated by members of a House-Senate conference committee assigned to work out differences between the two bodies over the bill. The compromise agreed to by the conference panel, and later approved in separate and final votes by the full House and Senate, includes a prevention and wellness fund of $1 billion.

Out of that $1 billion, the final stimulus measure allocates $650 million to "carry out evidence-based clinical and community-based prevention and wellness strategies authorized by the [U.S.] Public Health Service Act, as determined by the [HHS] Secretary, that deliver specific, measurable health outcomes that address chronic disease rates."

Activists familiar with AIDS programs said the language opens the way for the HHS secretary to allocate at least some of the $650 million for HIV-prevention programs.

Obama has yet to name his nominee for the HHS secretary's post since the first nominee, former U.S. Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota withdrew his name from contention after news surfaced that he failed to pay federal taxes.

"I'm very optimistic that the administration, including the presiding official at HHS, will include HIV and STD prevention specifically when they distribute those funds," said Johnson.

Johnson said HHS would have the authority to distribute some of the funds through direct grants to community-based organizations that provide HIV prevention programs, including groups such as D.C.'s Whitman-Walker Clinic and Us Helping Us.

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