UNIVERSITY COALITIONS for GLOBAL HEALTH

Hey UCGH!

This morning, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee marked up and approved the Lantos/Hyde Leadership Against AIDS, TB, Malaria Act of 2008 by a vote of 18-3. Though we have not seen the final bill that passed through committee, we understand that the bill is still a $50 billion bill, including $9 billion for TB and malaria. Thank you to all of you who were able call your Senator yesterday and ask them to retain the $50 billion-you’re voices were heard today at the Committee mark up!

Because of all of your amazing efforts we now have a U.S. Global AIDS Bill that has passed committee in both the House and the Senate! But we still need your help, especially as Congress gets ready to go on recess from March 15-30. This is a great time for all to go out and do in district lobby visits to make sure that when the bill hits the Senate and House floor for a vote after March 30th that your Congressional Member will vote in favor of this awesome bill! Please get out there and help us pass this bill-we’re almost there!

To learn more about in district lobby visits check out http://www.ucgh.org/resources/toolkit-center/ucgh-action-guide/contacting-politicians/

The only amendment offered today in the Senate mark up was a managers’ amendment. Though most of the provisions relate to the HIV/AIDS section of the bill there is one provision related to malaria (see #9).

The provisions of the managers’ amendment are as follows:

1. Technical amendments to Section 101(f) on Inspectors General (Biden)

2. Alter conscience clause on page 90 to conform to the House bill (Biden/Lugar)

3. Changing “healthcare workers and professionals” to “healthcare paraprofessionals and professionals” in Section 301, changing goal to target, and adding definition of paraprofessionals; elimination of “behavior change” phrase in several places in the bill to conform with House compromise; adjustments to pediatric treatment provisions (Biden)

4. Global Fund — retain current law on timing of measuring Fund contributions for purposes of U.S. limitation of 33 percent (DeMint)

5. Define “structural prevention” (Biden)

6. Create panel on reviewing PMTCT (Dodd)

7. Promote vaccine development (Kerry)

8. Promote microbicide development (Obama)

9. Malaria/ensure CDC surveillance doesn’t duplicate WHO (DeMint)

10. Highlight Caribbean as potential partner for regional approaches to AIDS (Nelson)

11. Sense of the Senate, adding new section 401(b) on the scale-up of the spending over the course of the five fiscal years (Biden/Lugar)

12. Promote pre-service training for health capacity (Cardin)

13. Technical change to insert section 307 (missing by mistake from original bill), and renumbering rest of Title III accordingly (Biden/Lugar)

To learn more about the U.S. Global AIDS Plan visit www.pepfar2.org

Student Training Calls: March 13th at 9pm (EST) & March 14th at 12pm (EST)
Call in Number 1-888-296-6500 Code: 130039
Learn more about the week of action toolkit and speak directly with the UCGH national coordinators!

Check out the Week of Action and download the toolkit online

Global Health Week of Action 2008
The Many Sides of the Right to Health

WHAT: The member organizations of the University Coalitions for Global Health (UCGH) have come together again in the spirit of partnership to hold the 1st even Global Health Week of Action where we hope to bring together med, grad and undergrad students to advocate for the right to health for populations that are under served or where it is outright ignored by the governments responsible for their welfare. We will bring attention to the right to health by focusing on the following issues:
• Access to Clean Water
• Women and AIDS
• HIV and Malaria
• Access to Medicines and the Role of Universities
• Global Health Care Worker Shortage

Check out the Week of Action and download the toolkit online

This year’s activities include:
• Implementation of an Issue=specific toolkit created by the national coordinators of UCGH
• Online chats with Global Health Experts
• Student planning and advocacy training conference calls

WHEN: March 22nd-March 30th 2008 On your Campus!
Student Training Calls: March 13th at 9pm (EST) & March 14th at 12pm (EST)
Call in Number 1-888-296-6500 Code: 130039
Learn more about the week of action toolkit and speak directly with the UCGH national coordinators!

Contact: your national coordinator or sdevita@globalhealth.org to find out more!!!

Check out the Week of Action and download the toolkit online

ACTION ALERT:

PLEASE CALL THE SENATE AND SEEK SUPPORT FOR $50 BILLION AIDS, TB AND MALARIA IN THE NEW U.S. GLOBAL AIDS BILL!

Why we need at least $50 billion in the next Global AIDS Plan:
• Continuing the current growth trajectory based on yearly increases provided by Congress would lead to approximately $50 billion over this period. Thus, this $50 billion simply continues our current leadership.
• $9 billion to protect and retain authorized funding for U.S. TB and malaria programs.

“Hi, my name is _______ and I’m from _(state &school)_. I’m calling to encourage Senator ___(see list below)____to support a U.S. Global AIDS bill that will reauthorize programs at $50 billion over five years for AIDS, TB and malaria. $50 billion would continue US leadership for AIDS and it will ensure the protection and retention of authorized funding for TB and malaria at $9 billion. Please urge Senator_______ to support a full $50billion for global AIDS, TB and malaria.”
Call these Senators:

Sen. Joseph Biden (DE-Democratic Chair) 202-224-5042
Sen. Barbara Boxer (CA) 202-224-3553
Sen. Benjamin Cardin (MD) 202-224-4524
Sen. Robert Casey (PA) 202-224-6324
Sen. Christopher Dodd (CT) 202-224-2823
Sen. Russell Feingold (WI) 202-224-5323
Sen. John Kerry (MA) 202-224-2742
Sen. Robert Menendez (NJ) 202-224-4744
Sen. Bill Nelson (FL) 202-224-5274
Sen. Barack Obama (IL) 202-224-2854
Sen. James Webb (VA) 202-224-4024

A greatly improved and expanded version of PEPFAR has been introduced in Congress, The Global HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008. This bill will be voted on TOMORROW by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and we need your immediate help to pass the best bill possible, which should include reauthorization for $50 billion over the next 5 years.

Why $9 billion for Malaria and TB?
• People who suffer malaria and TB infections are at greater risk of HIV infection. Leaving malaria and TB unchecked only fuels the HIV/AIDS crisis.
• We have proven and affordable interventions to prevent and treat malaria and successful treatments for TB that are cost-efficient uses of U.S. taxpayers dollars.
• Funding would allow these programs to scale up and would support much needed research, including operations research and vaccine development

This past Tuesday, nearly 200,000 student activists took action for Youth AIDS Day 2008. During the UCGH national call in day students from across the country urged members of the House and Senator Lugar to reauthorize and reform the policies in the next iteration of the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Together we called on Congress to increase funding levels to $50 billion over the next 5 years, support the training and retention of 140,000 new health care professionals, remove the 1/3 abstinence until marriage earmark prevention funding earmark…and I have to say you were VERY successful!

As students were jamming Capitol Hill phone lines with hundreds of calls and clogging up email inboxes with PEPFAR demands, activists in D.C. were ramping for “mark up” in the House Committee on Foreign Affairs (HCFA) and together we were able to get an excellent PEFPAR 2 bill passed through committee.

So I want to say a special thank you to all of those who took action for Youth AIDS Day. We generated over 1,206 emails from 346 Congressional Districts and made hundreds of calls to Senator Lugar’s office (who’s staff actually called one of the supporting organizations to ask why the students kept calling!-great work everyone!)

For those of you who maybe interested on Thursday, February 28 at 8pm ET and Friday, February 29 at 2pm ET, there will be a conference call to update student advocates on the current PEPFAR legislation and discuss what steps to take next. Please join us to learn how you can continue to take action to make sure this important piece of legislation passes. At the start time, call in to 800-505-4464 and type the passcode 951678# to join the call.

ps…check out PHR’s awesome blog write up about Youth AIDS Day

Hey UCGH-The House FINALLY sent PEPFAR II to mark up. The bipartisan bill passed committee with a supportive voice vote and will now move onto the floor.

However, the bill that was passed today was a “compromised bill”, which essentially means that the democrats opened dialogue with the republicans the night before markup and created a bipartisan bill that all sides could support. The compromise text includes more than 95% of the language contained in the Democratic draft of the 5-year reauthorization legislation. However, this new legislation has the support of Foreign Affairs Acting Chairman Howard Berman, Ranking Republican Member Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and the White House. The legislation contains groundbreaking provisions which move the Global HIV/AIDS program beyond the “emergency” phase of implementation to “sustainability”, dramatically boost HIV/AIDS programming related to women and girls, strengthen health systems in countries hard-hit by the HIV virus, authorize HIV/AIDS programs to include linkages to food and nutrition, education and health care programs, and increase U.S. contributions to the Global Fund.

Cool things in the bill:
• Reauthorization level of $50 Billion over the next 5 years for Global HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria initiatives.
• Training and retention of 140,000 new health care professionals and workers.
• Removal of the 1/3 abstinence until marriage funding earmark that applies to global HIV/AIDS prevention funding. Instead, the Administration will be directed to promote a “balanced” prevention program in target countries, including all elements of the Abstinence, Faithfulness, and Condoms (ABC) approach towards HIV prevention. The Administration will also be required to report to Congress if behavioral change programs, such as abstinence and fidelity, do not receive 50% of the funds devoted to the prevention of sexual transmission of HIV in countries in which there is a generalized HIV epidemic (currently, 33% of all HIV prevention funds in all countries – a much larger pot of funds – must be spent on abstinence). The 50% figure triggers a report, and is not an earmark governing the expenditure of funds.

Not so cool things in the bill:
• The compromise text returns to existing law related to the so-called “prostitution pledge”.
• The bipartisan bill contains new benchmarks for U.S. contributions to the Global Fund, but does not contain a funding penalty if the benchmarks are unmet.

Overall, this is a good bill that is working to take PEPFAR in a more comprehensive and evidence based direction. Thank you to all of you who helped support this effort!

Now a word from our friend Kaytee Riek at HealthGAP

BIPARTISAN GLOBAL AIDS BILL HAS SUPPORT OF BOTH PARTIES, BUT ONLY DOES HALF OF WHAT IS NEEDED IN FIGHT AGAINST GLOBAL AIDS PANDEMIC:
³As with all Compromises, we have to give up some of the things we needed²
- Committee Chair Berman

Contact: Kaytee Riek (267) 334-6984

February 27, 2008
For Immediate Release

Washington, DC: The House Committee on Foreign Affairs announced a bipartisan compromise bill to reauthorize the President¹s Emergency Plan to Fight AIDS (PEPFAR). This compromise bill will replace the one that the late, great Congressmember Tom Lantos originally proposed. The compromise, struck by Committee Chair Berman, Ranking Member Ross-Lehtinen and the White House, is a good starting place to ensure that the United States can do it¹s fair share to fight global AIDS, but as Committee Chair Berman says, ³compromises mean that we don¹t get all of what we want² and in this case, all of what is needed.

³We are excited that this bill has the support of both parties and of the administration and that the President has agreed to fund the bill at the minimum of $50 billion. However, we need to learn from the past five years.
The current bill needs to include the target number of providing treatment for 4 million people who are going to die without immediate treatment² said Kaytee Riek from Health GAP. As it is written, the bill proposes to ensure that only 3 million people are treated, which is one million less than the number who would be treated by the United States¹ commitment to providing AIDS treatment to 1/3 of those in critical need.

³The US should do our fair share to train sufficient health workers to keep our promise to Africa. In order to do this, we need to train and retain an additional 140,000 new health professionals,² said Health GAP¹s Jennifer Flynn, referring to the UNAIDS estimate of the number of health professionals required to achieve universal access to HIV treatment in Africa. ³Without this language, we are in danger of draining existing already overburdened health systems.²

Representative Payne emphasized the importance of passing this bill in time for the G8 meeting so that the United States can use our pledge to ensure that other developed nations contribute their fair share to the global AIDS fight.

Representative Chris Smith from New Jersey highlighted that the bill still includes what is commonly referred to as the ³Prostitution Pledge², the practice of requiring community based organizations to sign a form that they will not support prostitution. Experts have argued that this requirement means that local groups have to choose between providing treatment, services and support to individuals who engage in sex work in order to survive and ignoring those at higher risk for HIV infection. Representative Ackerman from New York responded that saving the lives of women who engage in survival sex is in the best interest of public health.

The full House is expected to vote on the bill in the next two weeks.