See How Your Politicians Voted
Title: Funding to Combat AIDS, Malaria, and Tuberculosis
Vote Smart's Synopsis:
Vote to pass a bill that authorizes $48 billion to the Global Fund for assistance to certain countries for combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis for the five-year period of 2009 through 2013.
Highlights:
- Establishes a plan to prevent 12 million new HIV infections worldwide, provide support care for 12 million who are already infected with HIV/AIDS including 5 million orphans and children, and help countries reach 80 percent of the targeted group with counseling, testing, and treatment (Sec. 101).
- Allows individuals with AIDS to receive a visa to travel into the United States (Sec. 305).
- Provides assistance for counseling, testing, and treatment to prevent the transmission of HIV among men who have sex with men and by providing male and female condoms (Sec. 301).
- Requires "balanced funding" for sexual transmission of HIV/AIDS prevention (Sec. 403).
- Requires the HIV/AIDS Response Coordinator in the U.S. Department of State to work with host countries to link HIV/AIDS programs with programs to deter prostitution and human trafficking (Sec. 102).
- Adds Vietnam to the list of countries that are guaranteed funding under the United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act of 2003 (Sec. 102).
- States that if host countries use less than 50 percent of their AIDS targeted funding for behavioral change programs (such as abstinence, monogamy, and partner reduction), the Coordinator of U.S. Government Activities to Combat HIV/AIDS Globally must file a report justifying this decision (Sec. 403).
- Provides additional nutritional support, health care, and safe drinking water assistance to individuals with HIV/AIDS (Sec. 301).
- Provides that $5 billion of the funding authorized in this bill shall be for combating malaria and $4 billion shall be for combating tuberculosis (Secs. 302 & 303).
- Provides that assistance shall be given to postsecondary institutions in host countries to improve their health infrastructure, with collaboration from historically black colleges and universities in the United States (Sec. 204).
- Provides that organizations receiving assistance to combat HIV/AIDS are not required to engage in programs or methods that they find religiously or morally objectionable (Sec. 301).
- Establishes the Emergency Fund for Indian Safety and Health and allocates $2 billion to it for the 5-year period beginning in 2008 (Sec. 601).