Housing Works on Brian Lehrer: Taking Obama’s AIDS Plan to Task
While Obama’s recently released National HIV/AIDS Strategy has met with near-universal praise from other AIDS groups, on Friday, Housing Works’ Christine Campbell hit the airwaves to caution against patting Obama on the back.
“The goals are not ambitious enough,” Campbell told WYNC’s Brian Lehrer. Among other issues, Campbell criticized Obama’s aim to reduce HIV infection rates by just 25 percent in five years. “…Our biggest concern is that we are in danger of this plan being successful and still having a raging epidemic,” she said.
Listen below: The Brian Lehrer Show: Obama’s HIV/AIDS Plan
There are currently 1.1 million people in the country living with HIV/AIDS, and the Centers for Disease Control estimates that 56,000 people are newly infected each year. The president’s goal would reduce that number to just 42,000 new infections a year, or one new infection each 12.5 minutes—from a current rate of one infection every nine minutes. The president will dedicate no new funds to pay for the plan.
“Unfortunately, groundbreaking as this plan is, with no funding and modest ambitions it is simply a blueprint for managing the AIDS epidemic, not ending it,” said Housing Works President and CEO Charles King.
Posted on July 14, 2010 at 11:53 pm
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