the small number of people in Idaho with AIDS would be covered. When you consider the population of New York State, for example, which is more than several states combined, then look at the number of people with HIV or AIDS in New York state, giving money to Idaho in equal amounts as New York will accomplish nothing but to deprive over 100,000 people in New York of health care and further frustrate health care providers and citizens in Idaho with too little money to mount an effective response.

That is why I say that the currently proposed Ryan White Reauthorization Act should not be passed until money for states and or cities that actually have large numbers of people with AIDS is added to the allocation.

This is not about equitable distribution of money to each state. It's a public health emergency. It's about getting support to people with HIV/AIDS and those who care for them, including clinics and doctors who are struggling to get by with very low reimbursements for care. There was an article in the New York Times recently about how doctors are starting to offer plastic surgery and cosmetic procedures like Botox to their practices to make money just to survive.

It's about preventing an increase in the number of people who contract HIV, and making sure that those who need mediations have enough to cover them. Under-treating HIV is a very serious risk to national health. The current Congress was blackmailed into this bill by threats of adding provisions of only funding those programs that only tell people the way to prevent HIV is by abstinence.

That's obviously a failing approach since the greatest increase in cases of HIV (percentage wise by demographic) is in married black women. It also does not address the fact that every year, 40,000 people in the US contract HIV. That number has not moved since the beginning of the epidemic - except in places where there has been adequate funding to run and maintain programs that educate, support and treat individuals.

I would say it's criminal, not crazy. It also puts the burden of defense on women who are typically the victims of sexual abuse, rape, domestic violence and financial dis-empowerment and punishment if they refuse to have unprotected sex with their male partners, whether they are married to them or not.

California organization's response:http://www.projectinform.org/healthcare/al...
New York Organization's response: http://www.atdn.org/rwa.html

The really amazing and crazy thing that happened is that Democrats were overpowered by lobbyists from Southern and rural states to distribute money in a fashion similar to how HomeSec funds were distributed. As these are markets where the pharmaceutical industry would like to expand their sales of HIV drugs - states that don't provide money to Medicaid or enough to their ADAP programs sell less HIV drugs - it would appear that Republican lobbyists have succeeded in cowering Democrats into cutting their noses off despite the public health needs of their country. And Democrats have been afraid to discuss HIV/AIDS for fear of alienating potential conservative voters.

Come 2007, no more capitulation. In fact, Speaker Pelosi should add addressing HIV/AIDS in the United States as one of her first priorities in 2007, as should Majority Leader Reid.