World AIDS Day

For lunch I was down at the Christmas Market again when I came across two young people collecting donations to benefit the AIDS mission in Frankfurt. For my donation, they gave me this bear and a ribbon to wear on my coat. As a scientist and self-proclaimed humanitarian, I would like to see the day when this disease is eradicated, or at the very least, see the day when the social stigma is gone. There has been so much progress in fighting the spread of HIV in recent years, thanks in part to President GW Bush. Yes, thanks to GW! He established and funded the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR. The funding pays for testing, treatment, support for patients' families, prevention programs, and dispelling the AIDS stigma in many African countries and Vietnam. Despite the program's great success, the Obama administration wants to reduce funding, which has earned them a D+ from Global AIDS Groups.

“Our investments in PEPFAR, the Global Fund, and overall global health have made a positive difference and we will continue our support, but we have to do more. We have to make sure that our programs foster conditions that improve people's lives and in turn promote stability, prosperity, and security. In this time of very tight budgets in our own government and our own people suffering from unemployment, from other kinds of cutbacks in services, we have to do more even here at home. We've seen some of the results of the cutbacks that are happening at the state and local level. So while we're talking about our commitment internationally, let's not forget our fellow citizens who are suffering right now.”

This attitude gets failing marks in my book; it's trickle-down humanitarianism. The "suffering" Americans are experiencing due to the economic downturn is mild compared to the daily lives of people benefiting from PEPFAR. Obviously there's less money to spread around due to "tightened budgets", so hopefully any cuts to the PEPFAR funding will be temporary.