San Francisco Examiner - October 29, 1999
Judy Holland, Examiner Washington Bureau

The provision for cutting the minority-outreach program by $25 million - to $139 million, down from $164 million - was tucked into the bill that funds the departments of Labor and Health and Human Services, which the House passed Thursday. Overall, the bill included a boost in funds for the Ryan White program, which provides health care and drug therapy for people with HIV or AIDS, to $1.6 billion from $1.4 billion last year.

Advocates for blacks and gay organizations expressed outrage at the minority-programs spending cuts.

Delegate Donna Christian-Christensen, the nonvoting representative from the Virgin Islands who focuses on health policy for the Congressional Black Caucus, said more money is needed to fight HIV. She said AIDS is "running rampant through the African American community."

Christian-Christensen, a Democrat, said the cut "flies in the face of what we know is happening."

Congress created the Congressional Black Caucus AIDS Initiative last year to bolster prevention and treatment among minorities. The money is part of an estimated $7 billion that the federal government spends each year on a wide range of AIDS prevention programs.

This year the Congressional Black Caucus had asked the government for a huge increase - $349 million - for prevention programs for blacks, Latinos, Asian Americans and Pacific islanders, and American Indians.

The program provides personnel and medications and advice for prevention and treatment services in cities such as San Francisco,Atlanta, New York and Chicago.

While African Americans represent 13 percent of the population, they account for roughly half of all new HIV infections, AIDS cases and AIDS deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Researchers estimate that between 240,000 and 325,000 blacks are infected with the virus, amounting to 1 in 50 black men and 1 in 160 black women in the United States. While Latinos represent 11.5 percent of the population, the CDC estimates that they account for 20 percent of the new HIV infections.

Deaths from AIDS have been declining in the overall population, falling by 42 percent in 1997 and 20 percent in 1998. But the rate of death from AIDS for blacks declined only 35 percent in 1997 and 17 percent in 1998, according to the agency.

AIDS is most often spread through sexual contact, sharing contaminated needles or infected blood products.

Winnie Stachelberg, political director of the Human Rights Campaign, criticized Congress for reducing funding for HIV and AIDS programs for minorities.

"In the face of rising HIV infections in communities of color and in the face of a slower decline in AIDS death rates in communities of color, this $25 million cut is unconscionable and clearly shows the disregard that some people have for people who are living with HIV and AIDS," she said.

Steve Lew, a member of the president's advisory council on HIV and AIDS, said the new federal program targeting money for minority HIV prevention has just begun taking root.

"The momentum has just begun," said Lew, who is from San Francisco. "To go back on it in the second year is really sending the wrong message."
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