UNITED STATES: "Stimulus Allows 'Discretionary' Funds for HIV Prevention"

Southern Voice (Atlanta) (02.20.09):: Lou Chibbaro, Jr.

While congressional negotiators cut direct funding to prevent HIV and other diseases from the recently passed economic stimulus bill, HIV prevention funding could still be available through a discretionary "community-based prevention and wellness" fund, AIDS advocates said.

In order to obtain votes necessary for the bill's passage, House-Senate conference negotiators cut from the House version of the bill $335 million to prevent HIV, viral hepatitis, other STDs, and TB. Republicans and some Democrats in the Senate had objected to including such funding in a stimulus package.

The Senate had earlier dropped from its version $400 million specifically for HIV prevention. Many AIDS advocacy groups - including AIDS Healthcare Foundation, AIDS Action, and the AIDS Institute - had lobbied for the House provision to remain intact. The bill that passed Feb. 13 includes $1 billion in discretionary prevention and wellness funding, part of which AIDS advocates hope can be used to fight HIV.

Out of the $1 billion, $650 million is allocated "to carry out evidence-based clinical and community-based prevention and wellness strategies authorized by the [US] Public Health Service Act, as determined by the [Health and Human Services] Secretary, that deliver specific, measurable health outcomes that address chronic disease rates." Activists familiar with AIDS programs said the language could authorize the HHS secretary to allocate some of the money to HIV prevention programs.