[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 184 (Tuesday, December 4, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H14135-H14136]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2000
                          2007 WORLD AIDS DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs. Christensen) is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Madam Speaker, as you heard, last Saturday was 
World AIDS Day, and I join my colleagues to remind us of its goals and 
ideals and to support the resolution that is going to be introduced by 
my colleague and good friend Congresswoman Barbara Lee to have this 
Congress support those goals and ideals.
  We also call on our colleagues on both sides of the aisle and in both 
sides of the Capitol to honor this year's World AIDS Day theme, both in 
this Nation and abroad, to stop AIDS and keep the promise.
  As you heard, Congresswoman Lee and I recently returned from South 
Africa, where we were inspired and motivated by the commitment of the 
people, young and old, to confront HIV and AIDS.
  It was a distinct privilege for me to have been invited to give the 
keynote address at a World AIDS Day ceremony in Sekhukhune in the 
Greater Tabatse Region of South Africa. South Africa has the most AIDS 
cases of any country in the world. And while we were proud to know that 
it is also the country with the largest PEPFAR program, we and the rest 
of the world still need to do more.
  From all we saw, all of the programs we witnessed that were funded, 
either by PEPFAR or by private corporations such as Johnson and Johnson 
and Humana, in Limpopo, in Zola in Soweto, in Pretoria or as it will 
now be called, Tshwane or in Johannesburg, and from the revised reports 
we have seen coming from UNAIDS, we greeted World AIDS Day with a sense 
of hope for all the individuals, the families and the nations in our 
global community who have for far too long struggled with this 
pandemic.
  And in my keynote I drew comparisons between the HIV and AIDS in sub-
Saharan Africa, in the Caribbean whose prevalence rate is second to 
theirs, in the African American community in

[[Page H14136]]

the United States and in my own Virgin Islands, speaking to how people 
of African descent the world over are so disproportionately impacted by 
this virus.
  But everywhere there are signs, early signs, of change and 
potentially promising trends, everywhere, including in the Virgin 
Islands and the rest of the Caribbean, everywhere except in the United 
States.
  The HIV epidemic is more than 25 years old; and despite all that we 
know and all of the resources we have, the CDC is finalizing a report 
which will be released early next year that I understand will show that 
the case rate here in the U.S. is possibly more than 50 percent higher 
than we previously thought. Given the lack of response from this 
administration to the requests of the CBC and our community partners, 
I'm sure that it will show that the highest increases are in people of 
racial and ethic minority backgrounds.
  Again, let me say that the theme for this in the past 2 years has 
been ``Stop AIDS, Keep the Promise.'' The promise has not been fully 
kept anywhere, but nowhere has it fallen more short, has that promise 
been more empty than right here at home in this country of great 
resources and the most advanced medicines and technologies.
  There's another part to the theme, and that is leadership, which is 
needed more than ever. On our part we need to lead by directing more 
Federal resources to HIV prevention. Beyond that, our leadership must 
be open to proven methods of prevention instead of limiting the good we 
can do and the lives we can save because of ideology and narrow 
politics. And the prevention we provide needs to be not of the 
abstinence-only kind, which our government agencies have clearly 
demonstrated is not effective. Lifting the ban on needle exchange alone 
would dramatically reduce the transmission of the disease, and 
developing low-cost barrier methods such as microbicides need to be 
given as much attention as funding the latest ARVS, but those too need 
to be made more affordable.
  And, Madam Speaker, we need a national plan. It is clear from the 
fact that we are losing ground while some of the poorest areas of the 
world are making strides that the leadership we provide must define 
global as in global epidemic, or global HIV/AIDS as including this 
country on par with all of the others. We need to restore the 19 
percent of funding that has been cut from domestic AIDS in this 
administration and greatly increase HIV/AIDS funding across the board. 
We need to fund the Ryan White CARE Act at the level it needs to be 
funded, more than $1 billion above the current level, to restore and 
re-fund the Minority Aids Initiative to build capacity in the 
communities that are hardest hit, and to eliminate ADAP waiting lists, 
where people who cannot get treatment wait to die.
  We need to ensure that we expand access to information, testing 
services and treatment to ex-offenders who are at great risk for HIV 
and who after paying their debt return to their communities and 
families.
  And we need to dramatically increase PEPFAR funding while expanding 
it to include all Caribbean countries and making it more flexible so it 
can meet the unique needs of the countries that need it.
  The global report shows that when we apply the recommendations of 
social and scientific research and when we support and replicate 
programs that work, results are seen. It shows that empowering 
communities that are hard hit by HIV and AIDS by putting the resources, 
technical assistance and support in their indigenous community and 
faith-based organizations here and abroad produce great impact.
  The most dramatic thing is that people are looking to us for 
leadership and we can provide it and we can start by supporting 
Congresswoman Lee's resolution.

                          ____________________