[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 21]
[Senate]
[Pages 29111-29112]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             WORLD AIDS DAY

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I rise today in recognition of World AIDS 
Day, an international commemoration held each year on December 1 to 
raise awareness of HIV and AIDS around the world. The theme for this 
year's World AIDS Day is ``universal access and human rights.''
  Around the world, 33 million people were living with HIV in 2007, 
including 2.7 million new infections. In the U.S., more than 1.2 
million people are infected with HIV. According to the Joint United 
Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, or UNAIDS, global reports indicated that 2 
million people died from AIDS-related causes in 2007.
  Globally, sub-Saharan Africa is the hardest-hit region when it comes 
to HIV infection, accounting for two-thirds of all people living with 
HIV and for three-quarters of AIDS deaths in 2007. Sadly, 75 percent of 
young people worldwide who are diagnosed with HIV are girls living in 
sub-Saharan Africa.
  According to the results of a global youth survey conducted in 99 
countries, 50 percent of young people have a dangerously low knowledge 
of how the disease is contracted and can be prevented. Another report 
by UNAIDS collected data from 64 countries and found

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that fewer than 40 percent of young people have basic information about 
HIV. This knowledge gap is particularly disturbing when taking into 
account a UNICEF report that indicates that 4.9 million young people, 
ages 15-24, are living with HIV worldwide.
  Despite these statistics, recent advances in prevention and treatment 
of HIV give hope for the future. Globally, approximately 38 percent of 
the 730,000 children under 15 who needed antiretroviral drugs to treat 
HIV in 2008 were receiving the necessary therapy, according to UNAIDS. 
This is a huge increase from just a little over 10 percent in 2005.
  The percentage of pregnant women living with HIV who received 
antiretroviral treatment to prevent mother-to-child transmission has 
increased from 9 percent in 2004 to 33 percent in 2007.
  Despite recent improvements in treatment coverage and declining 
mother-to-child transmission of HIV, problems remain in preventing and 
treating the disease. In addition, the number of new HIV infections 
continues to outpace the advances made in treatment numbers for every 
two people put on antiretroviral drugs, another five become newly 
infected with the disease. Clearly, prevention measures are essential 
to continue the fight against HIV/AIDS.
  No State in the U.S. is immune from the effects of HIV/AIDS, and the 
epidemic is deeply felt among Marylanders as well. At the end of 2007, 
Maryland had 28,270 people living with HIV and AIDS. That same year, 
Maryland ranked fourth in the U.S. for the number of AIDS cases per 
100,000 people.
  The Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has estimated 
that there are between 6,000 and 9,000 Marylanders who are unaware that 
they are infected with HIV. Of the 1.2 million people in the United 
States who are estimated to be infected with HIV, as many as 21 percent 
are unaware that they have the virus.
  To address this problem, it is crucial that HIV screening be readily 
available and accessible to everyone at little or no cost. This will 
increase the rate of diagnosis in individuals that have HIV and will 
accelerate their treatment.
  The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will address this need 
and will help achieve the goals outlined by the theme of this year's 
World AIDS Day campaign of ``universal access and human rights.''
  First and foremost, the bill eliminates discrimination based on pre-
existing conditions. Individuals with HIV will no longer be rejected 
from insurance coverage because of their disease.
  The bill also encourages outreach to enroll vulnerable and 
underserved populations in Medicare and CHIP, including adults and 
children with HIV/AIDS. It provides personal responsibility education 
grants to States to create HIV/AIDS education programs for adolescents.
  The bill will also cover preventive services recommended by the U.S. 
Preventive Services Task Force, including HIV testing for all pregnant 
women. This testing will be provided at no individual cost, making it 
universally accessible to all women in the U.S. Testing pregnant women 
for HIV is vital for prevention efforts, allowing women who test 
positive to begin antiretroviral drugs to prevent transmission to their 
baby.
  Furthermore, the Mikulski amendment, which I have cosponsored, would 
allow coverage for HIV testing for all women, regardless of risk, based 
on expert recommendations from the Health Resources and Services 
Administration.
  The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act also provides grants 
to encourage training health care workers to treat individuals with 
HIV/AIDS and other vulnerable populations.
  Because of the numerous provisions in the bill that will help the 
prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS, several groups have expressed 
their support for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Among 
the groups that I have heard from is the HIV Medicine Association, an 
organization representing 3,600 physicians, scientists, and health care 
professionals who work on the frontlines of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in 
communities across the country.
  We must continue to fight HIV/AIDS, and I urge my colleagues to 
support the measures outlined in the Patient Protection and Affordable 
Care Act that will further our efforts to combat this disease.

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