Today President Bush signed the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Modernization Act, a critical life-line for over half a million low-income Americans living with HIV/AIDS. For years, the Ryan White CARE Act has been instrumental in the fight of HIV/AIDS, giving hope to those living with HIV and AIDS by providing care, services and access to lifesaving medication.

HRC President Joe Solomnese stated:

"We are pleased that a bipartisan Congress and the President were able to come together and agree on the reauthorization of the Ryan White Care Act and officially sign it into law today," said Joe Solmonese, President of the Human Rights Campaign. "This critical life-saving piece of legislation will help over a half million low-income Americans living with HIV/AIDS continue to receive the medical care they so desperately need. However, as we head into a new year and a new Congress we will aggressively push to ensure that the years of insufficient funding of this program be corrected. If our government is serious about combating this epidemic we must not allow rhetoric to mask itself as real action."

Speaker-elect Pelosi said in a statement:

"But our work is not yet done. We must remain vigilant in our fight against HIV and AIDS, recognizing that the reauthorization of the Ryan White CARE Act is only one of the many steps we must take if we are to make HIV and AIDS a distant memory. Funding has not kept pace with the number of people with AIDS or with inflation, dropping 35 percent per case since 2001. It is long past time we provide additional funding, and next year, under a Democratic Congress, we will reverse that decline."

Labels: AIDS, bush

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 19, 2006 at 2:43 PM. Want to discuss? Leave a comment below.