FEINGOLD LAUDS AFRICA AIDS INITIATIVE Praises Administration for Historic U.N. Meeting January 10, 2000 WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Russ Feingold today expressed enthusiasm for the Clinton Administration's new effort to wage the global fight against HIV/AIDS. The Administration will ask Congress to commit resources to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic, according to Vice President Gore who made the announcement while chairing an historic meeting of the United Nations Security Council on the impact of AIDS on security in Africa. Feingold is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Subcommittee on African Affairs. "HIV and AIDS have had a devastating impact across our globe, especially in Africa, where I have recently seen first hand the staggering human and economic toll of this epidemic. I feel a responsibility to persuade my colleagues just how terrible this AIDS problem is in Africa, and I am pleased that the Administration will request $100 million in funding to address this world crisis," said Feingold. Feingold traveled last month to ten African countries in twelve days including Mali, Angola, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Rwanda, Uganda, Congo and Niger. Feingold, who traveled with United States Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke, made the HIV/AIDS crisis a priority on the trip agenda. While in Africa, Feingold and Holbrooke visited an AIDS awareness center in Namibia, and discussed the crisis with Foreign Ministers and Presidents in nearly every country they visited. In particular, Feingold met with Uganda's President Museveni, and discussed that country's significant strides in reducing the epidemic. "AIDS is a global disease that puts us all at risk and it is fitting that when the U.N. Security Council held the first meeting in its history on a health issue today, the meeting focused on the issue of HIV/AIDS in Africa," said Feingold. "This epidemic does not recognize political boundaries. As AIDS attacks the most productive segments of society abroad, U.S. businesses lose important economic opportunities. And as more and more children lose their parents to AIDS, the prospects for global stability and prosperity in the future diminish." Feingold has also consistently raised these issues in Congress. Feingold sponsored the HOPE for Africa bill to expand trade between Africa and the United States. That measure contains provisions to promote the economic ties between the U.S. and Africa and addressed the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa. The Feingold bill mandates that priority be assigned to HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment in U.S. development assistance to African countries, provides authority for the use of infrastructure funds for the development of HIV/AIDS treatment, and prohibits U.S. funds from being used to change an intellectual property law of an African country. The latter provision responds to activities by pharmaceutical companies to undermine legal efforts in some African nations to make lower cost HIV/AIDS drugs more available. "When I introduced the HOPE for Africa Act, I implored my colleagues to remember that the problems of Africa are comprehensive. HIV/AIDS, trade, debt, corruption – all of these need to be taken on, and none will be fully solved without attention to the others," said Feingold. "That's why I'm encouraged by the $100 million Administration proposal for vaccine research funding, prevention and education programs. These funds could be well spent on fighting the stigma of AIDS and focusing on mother-to-child transmission of the virus. As always, I will work to make sure that this worthy $100 million initiative is properly offset." Feingold praised Vice President Gore and U.N. Ambassador Holbrooke for their role in highlighting the HIV/AIDS crisis at the U.N. Security Council meeting. "The HIV/AIDS problem needs more than money. Public discussions like the one at the United Nations today with Ambassador Holbrooke, Vice President Gore and other members of the U.N. Security Council will go a long way toward promoting understanding of the threat of HIV/AIDS on the continent of Africa and the rest of the world."

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