The Hill News

Last week a new analysis of adult mortality rates in African countries was released. The study authors found that between 2004 and 2008, in those nations where the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) was most active, the odds of death were about 20 percent lower than in other countries in the region. It was one more piece in the growing collection of evidence that PEPFAR has been a tremendously successful program, advancing U.S. humanitarian and diplomatic priorities and saving millions of lives. 

That is why the proposal in President Obama’s fiscal year 2013 budget to cut bi-lateral HIV programming through PEPFAR by nearly $550 million, or 11 percent, has stunned so many on Capitol Hill and in the global health community. Here are six reasons why this proposal should be rejected by Congress:

1. It undermines the goal of an “AIDS-free generation.” Last December, President Obama pledged that we can “end this pandemic,”! echoing Secretary of State Clinton’s earlier statement that achieving an “AIDS-free generation” is a policy priority for the U.S. But the budget request isn’t consistent with this stated ambition. Though the White House insists the U.S. can still achieve the AIDS treatment and other targets set by the president last year, it is inevitable that PEPFAR program managers, faced with seriously diminished resources and ambitious targets in a few areas, will slash services for which there are no specific goals. That might include, for example, the PEPFAR program providing food and education to millions of children orphaned by AIDS.

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