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Federal Document Clearing House
Congressional Testimony
July 11, 2000, Tuesday
SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING TESTIMONY
LENGTH: 854 words
HEADLINE:
TESTIMONY July 11, 2000 TOM BLILEY REPRESENTATIVE HOUSE
COMMERCE HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENT AIDS SUPPORT AND TREATMENT
BODY:
July 11, 2000 Prepared Statement of The
Honorable Tom Bliley Legislative Hearing H.R. 4807, the Ryan White CARE
Act Amendments of 2000 Subcommittee on Health & Environment Mr.
Chairman, thank you for having this hearing today. I would also like to salute
Dr. Coburn and Mr. Waxman for their work. The Ryan White CARE
Act should address the health care necessities of all Americans living
with HIV/AIDS equally, without prejudice to their race, sex, or place of
diagnosis. But, some Americans living with HIV/AIDS are treated more equally
than others. Clearly, the funding allocation of the Ryan White CARE
Act needs to get a dose of common sense. Our public health system needs
to needs to be brought up to date in light of the latest scientific
understanding of the epidemic. But in the year 2000, advances in HIV treatment
have slowed the progression of HIV disease for infected persons on treatment and
contributed to a decline in AIDS incidence. These advances in treatment, as well
as factors like the rapid spread of HIV among populations not well served by
AIDS prevention efforts, have rendered AIDS surveillance data significantly less
valuable in identifying trends in the incidence of HIV infection or the impact
of the epidemic on the health-care system. I note that both the Commonwealth of
Virginia and the State of Michigan began mandatory confidential reporting of HIV
back in 1989. According to Loretta Davis-Satterla, the Director of the Division
of HIV/AIDS-STD with the Michigan Department of Community Health who testified
before the Subcommittee on Health and Environment on May 11, 2000, "Confidential
HIV reporting has greatly enhanced Michigan's ability to rapidly and effectively
respond to the dynamics of this epidemic . . . In contrast to AIDS case
surveillance, HIV case surveillance provides data to better characterize
populations in which HIV infection has been newly diagnosed, including persons
with evidence of recent HIV infection. Compared with persons living with AIDS,
those reported living with HIV infection in Michigan are more likely to be women
and African Americans." It is imperative that the Ryan White CARE
Act be reauthorized to provide the incentives to move public health in
the right direction so that the HIV/AIDS epidemic can be tracked more
accurately, and appropriate funding and information about this disease be better
directed. Mr. Chairman, I thank you again and I look forward to the testimony
this morning.
LOAD-DATE: July 12, 2000, Wednesday
