[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 104 (Tuesday, July 24, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1405]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 CALL FOR RECOGNITION OF AND ACTION ON THE HUMANITARIAN CRISIS OF AIDS

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, July 24, 2001

  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise before you today to call attention to 
the worldwide humanitarian crisis of AIDS. As we consider 
appropriations for fiscal year 2002, I urge my colleagues to increase 
our focus on the fight against HIV and AIDS.
  I support and applaud the substantial increase in funding to fight 
HIV/AIDS around the world. I am happy to see that Foreign Operations 
Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2002 includes $474 million for 
combating HIV/AIDS, roughly $45 million more than the Bush 
administration requested. The bill provides for $100 million of the 
promised $200 million U.S. contribution to the new United Nations 
Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and Tuberculosis. I hope that 
this contribution is the first of many, a down payment on our global 
future.
  As I consider the recent U.N. AIDS conference, I think about the 
world's people rallying together, in all of our richness and 
complexity, to fight something so basic yet elusive: a virus. It is 
shocking and difficult to absorb the reality of the expansive damage 
done by an organism so small.
  It was 20 years ago that we began this fight, and it is a difficult 
anniversary. Thankfully, past disagreement on this issue has given way 
to building consensus that AIDS is an international emergency that 
threatens global security and stability. For the United States, this is 
a matter of the highest urgency and national interest. The moral, 
humanitarian, economic, and international security threats posed by 
AIDS mandate concentrated and immediate action.
  We are all aware of the health crisis presented by AIDS. The facts 
are staggering and quoted often. At times, the numbers are so 
emotionally unwieldy that it is difficult to absorb the reality of this 
epic loss in a meaningful way.
  Again, we survey the damage: 21 million people have lost their lives 
to AIDS. Of those, 17 million victims were Africans. This loss of human 
life is unparalleled. Sub-Saharan Africa is home to about 10 percent of 
the world's population--and more than 70 percent of the worldwide total 
of infected people. The United Nations reports that 25.3 million adults 
and children in sub-Saharan Africa are currently infected with the HIV 
virus and that 12.1 million African children have been orphaned by AIDS 
since the epidemic began 20 years ago. These children are left to a 
life of malnutrition and limited educational opportunity.
  Beyond Africa, the impact of AIDS is increasing in Asia, Central 
America, Eastern Europe, and India. The situation is also dire closer 
to home. The Caribbean is fast
  The world's poorest countries are those hardest hit. As the virus 
destroys the lives and bodies of individuals, it east away at the very 
fabric of developing nation-states. Tragic and personal experiences 
with death in these countries are adding up to disastrous social and 
economic trends.
  UNAIDS states that 95 percent of the world's 34.3 million HIV-
infected people live in developing countries, countries where access to 
care and much-needed medicines are limited. Development is reversed and 
already-fragile governments are strained. Developing economies are 
further marginalized by as much as 20 percent. As nations lose entire 
generations, they lose skilled workers, teachers, doctors, and leaders. 
The virus is depriving Africa of those who could best contribute to its 
future, leaving behind economic decline and political upheaval.
  African and other third-world nations, long on the back burner of 
U.S. policy consideration, now demand our attention and cooperation. 
This continuum of suffering must be met with a continuum of real and 
immediate intervention. This epidemic is truly the greatest 
developmental challenge of our lifetime.
  The situation is dire, yet is my hope that in the midst of this 
crisis, we can find great opportunity. Perhaps we can meet this 
challenge, employing crisis as a tool to improve medical training, 
treatment, and health care delivery infrastructure for the world's 
neediest people.
  We must meet the urgency of this great calamity and move from 
shocking figures to strategic, collaborative interventions. The United 
States must use both our resources and our moral influence as we urge 
all nations to join in this fight.
  We must augment our own contributions and urge increased 
international donations to the World Bank AIDS international trust and 
the U.N. Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and Tuberculosis. The 
President recently requested roughly $2.5 billion for Theater Missile 
Defense (TMD). Surely, we can do more for AIDS.
  Strategic, multilateral partnerships must be formed between 
governments, non-governmental organizations, pharmaceutical companies, 
and private foundations and industry to further a comprehensive program 
of worldwide HIV/AIDS prevention, awareness, education, and treatment. 
We must focus on authorizing critical assistance to fight the disease 
in sub-Saharan Africa and other developing countries.
  I wish to stress that we must not lose hope as we face tough 
decisions and the difficult balancing of different positions and 
approaches. We must allocate rationed resources and discuss the 
appropriate balance between prevention, treatment, and research. We 
must craft a compromise between important international trade rules and 
critical access to HIV-related drugs. We must temper the urgent need 
for the availability of antiretroviral drugs with the reality of health 
systems that are not prepared for diagnosis and treatment. As we work 
to extend the lives of people living with AIDS, we must pursue 
aggressive and phased-in interventions. Without focused funding on the 
improvement of medical infrastructure, we entertain dangerous public 
health risks posed by the introduction of drug-resistant strains. We 
must anticipate and constructively respond to all these challenges as 
they arise, for they will arise. But let it be said: challenges and 
hurdles are never a reason to not attempt change, especially when the 
goal is reduction of extreme human suffering and prolonging of life. We 
must frame setbacks as opportunities for improved efforts.
  Lastly, I urge my colleagues to consider the effects of trade and 
debt reduction policies that influence the treatment of the disease. We 
must push for the full implementation of the African trade bill and 
Caribbean Basin initiative. Additionally, it is essential that we 
provide debt relief to the world's poorest countries and enable these 
countries to reinvest the savings in treatment, prevention, education, 
and poverty reduction efforts.
  I urge my colleagues to let these appropriations be another step in 
U.S. leadership on this issue. Our own citizens have led the fight in 
awareness and advocacy on this issue--let us meet them in their 
determination and dedication. Let these funds be the beginning of 
increased efforts to treat and prevent this terrible disease. If we 
miss this opportunity for leadership, we will lose an entire 
generation. We cannot come late in our response.
  I thank my colleagues for their continued cooperation and action on 
this issue. It is my wish that our efforts will result in a day where 
much like smallpox, the worldwide plague of AIDS will be only a memory; 
poignant, yet firmly in our past.

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