*EPF315 05/14/2003
Byliner: Hyde Urges Senate to Support House Measure Against AIDS
(Op-ed column in May 14 Washington Post) (880)

(This column by Representative Henry J. Hyde, Republican of Illinois and chairman of the House International Relations Committee, was first published May 14 in the Washington Post. The column is in the public domain. No republication restrictions.)

(begin byliner)

No More Delay on Fighting AIDS
By Henry J. Hyde

On Friday the Senate will begin debate on one of the great challenges of our age: the worldwide scourge of AIDS.

The legislation awaiting my Senate colleagues is a compromise worked out between Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) and me, the legislative product of more than two years of negotiations and one that received 375 votes during House passage this month.

In developing our legislation, neither of us got everything we wanted. That's the nature of a compromise that nevertheless gives shape and substance to our nation's bilateral and multilateral responses to this growing humanitarian and national security challenge.

The Hyde-Lantos compromise includes a five-year authorization, consistent with the president's proposal, rather than the two-year authorization advanced by Senate Democrats. Hyde-Lantos includes safeguards to monitor, audit and evaluate the work of the Global Fund, the public/private AIDS partnership based in Switzerland, which received a $350 million contribution from the United States this year. The Senate bill contains no such safeguards. The Hyde-Lantos initiative contains fewer earmarks on funding than the proposal advanced by Senate Democrats. In doing so, Hyde-Lantos offers the administration needed flexibility to undertake this ambitious rescue effort and get assistance into the field quickly. On prevention, the issues of abstinence, monogamy and condom use are tackled directly in the Hyde-Lantos bill but are avoided in the Senate bill, a problem that will only delay enactment of this essential legislation.

Obviously, it is not my place to suggest that the Senate cannot amend this carefully crafted compromise, which incorporates important elements of other AIDS initiatives offered by my Senate colleagues Bill Frist, Joe Biden, Richard Lugar and John Kerry. But let me suggest a few reasons why the Senate should not delay America's response to this crisis.

Too often in this town, important legislation dies in House-Senate conference committees. There are plenty of reasons for this, and both parties share blame for playing politics with issues and legislation. But with AIDS, we know what to do, and we should do so now.

Further delay in enacting the Hyde-Lantos compromise can only mean more deaths from AIDS. (In the five minutes or so required to read this column, another 30 people will die and another 55 will become infected.) A Senate bill substantially different from our bipartisan compromise only delays naming a coordinator (that requires Senate confirmation) with broad powers to take executive action to fund bilateral and multilateral projects to provide antiretroviral therapy for 2 million people living with AIDS.

A new bill only delays development of required strategies to extend end-of-life care for millions suffering unspeakable pain as they lie dying of an incurable disease; and it delays a coordinated effort to find vaccines for HIV/AIDS and malaria.

A new bill only delays the pressure on House and Senate appropriators to pony up the $15 billion requested by the president over the next five years to fight this epidemic; and it delays U.S. support for proven prevention efforts that promote abstinence, monogamy and use of condoms.

And, for the president in his meeting with G-8 leaders in June, a new bill only delays an opportunity he will have at this meeting to use enactment of this legislation to leverage support for worldwide AIDS efforts from our wealthy partners.

Not since the bubonic plague swept across the world in the last millennium has our world confronted such a horrible curse as we are now witnessing with the growing AIDS pandemic. The number of dead or dying is grotesquely high: 25 million already dead worldwide and 8,500 more dying every day, with the horrible prospect of entire villages populated by orphans because the adults are dead or dying from AIDS.

The pandemic is more than a humanitarian crisis. Increasingly, it's a threat to the security of the developed world. Left unchecked, this plague will further rip the fabric of developing societies, pushing fragile governments and economies to the point of collapse.

America should not have to take on the AIDS crisis alone. But as is often the case, American leadership -- political or financial -- is necessary if our friends around the world are to bear their fair share of the burden. That is what the president's proposal does: It sets a pattern of American leadership that others, I believe, will follow.

The Senate has an opportunity this week to do something of significant and lasting importance. It also has an obligation to do something reflecting our commitment to human solidarity, and the privilege of doing something truly compassionate.

The AIDS virus is a mortal challenge to our civilization. It is my hope that the Senate will be animated by the compassion -- and the vision -- that has always defined what it means to be an American.

(The writer, a Republican representative from Illinois, is chairman of the House International Relations Committee.)

(end byliner)

(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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