The Obama administration released a 74-page document yesterday for its five-year plan to combat AIDS globally, signaling a controversial hift in strategy. The administration will put more money into prevention and diseases that are cheaper to treat, and dial back spending on antiretrovirals. More people will continue to receive the expensive treatment regimen each year, the plan promised, but that number will increase at a far slower rate than we've seen in the last five years. And AIDS activists aren't happy. From the Times:
AIDS advocates complained bitterly that they had been betrayed and that the Bush administration’s best legacy was being gutted — and they blame a doctor and budget adviser who is also the brother of the White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel.
“I’m holding my nose as I say this, but I miss George W. Bush,” said Gregg Gonsalves a long-time AIDS campaigner. “On AIDS, he really stepped up. He did a tremendous thing. Now, to have this happen under Obama is really depressing.”
Read the full story at the Times' website.
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