[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 15]
[House]
[Page 20065]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 HIV/AIDS IS WREAKING HAVOC ON AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITIES ACROSS OUR 
                                 NATION

  (Ms. MOORE of Wisconsin asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute.)
  Ms. MOORE of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, you have heard earlier today 
that the HIV/AIDS pandemic has wreaked havoc on the African American 
community across the Nation.
  And that is also true for my own district in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 
where since 1983 over 50 percent of the diagnosed AIDS cases were among 
African Americans. And while these data are appalling and frightening, 
we must remember that this is entirely preventable.
  We must spread the hope of preventing AIDS. So despite this terrible 
human tragedy, we must never yield to complacency and silence and 
ignorance, because complacency and silence and ignorance, of course, 
leads to death.
  We must encourage people to get educated, to get tested, to get 
involved in the fight against AIDS. But quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, it 
is this Congress's responsibility to fight this national epidemic by 
providing the resources for people to be involved in setting aside this 
pandemic. It is not enough to just say no to sex.
  This commitment would involve reauthorizing the Ryan White Care Act. 
It would involve increasing funding for the Minority AIDS Initiative. 
Mr. Speaker, we must never look the other way and say that nothing can 
be done. And I urge my colleagues to take action and to fund these 
critical initiatives.

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