|
AIDS Favoritism (a)
Unfair for Cardiovascular Disease Patients!
Are you aware that the death rate from AIDS in California’s and
New York’s newly infected patients has plummeted 98% (b) and 95%
(c) yet AIDS still receives 10% (d) of the entire federal research
budget? The bias towards AIDS has resulted in gross differences in
funding for your diseases. For example, our government is spending
only $40 on each patient with cardiovascular disease (CVD = heart,
stroke and hypertension) and $80 on each diabetic versus $3,084 on
each AIDS patient (e). When one is aware that every year CVD kills
almost a million Americans [950,000 (f)] and diabetes kills more
than AIDS and breast cancer combined compared to 16,371 (g) for
AIDS one can only shout, “That’s not FAIR!”
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The increase in funding
for AIDS since 1999 – just the increase – is greater than the 2005
budget for EVERY disease except cancer and CVD. Although the above
statistics involve disease research, one cannot help but notice
that at present AIDS funding levels, in two more years one will be
able to say, “The total amount spent on all AIDS programs is 1/5th
of a Trillion dollars (h).
“But AIDS is a pandemic and it deserves more funding!” AIDS
activists argue. The World Health Organization and UNAIDS report
that the AIDS infection rate is less than 1% (i) in every country
except in Sub-Saharan African and the Caribbean. What do they
need: more research dollars? No, they need the exact same thing
that has resulted in the 97% and 95% decrease in California’s and
New York’s AIDS deaths: namely, the effective drugs that have been
developed, prevention education and harm reduction policies.
I am a proud member of The FAIR Foundation (j) – “FAIR” stands for
"Fair Allocations in Research." Along with myself, there are
thousands of others from Maine to Hawaii who are coming together
through the FAIR Foundation to alert America on the need for
change in research funding policies.
“FAIR” believes a disease’s mortality rate should be given
emphasis in determining allocations, and other secondary factors
should be utilized to insure diseases that cause great suffering
but have low mortality rates will also receive increased (k)
dollars. Research funds should not be allocated based on Hollywood
popularity or political correctness.
It is now time to redirect funding to diseases that are more
deserving and currently receiving billions less than AIDS,
including the sixteen (l) that kill over a million more Americans
than AIDS annually. Please endorse The FAIR Foundation’s efforts
to put an end to AIDS favoritism and recommend that all citizens
join them in demanding research funding that is fair and equitable
for all. Do it now: JOIN The FAIR Foundation today (free) by
clicking here: http://www.fairfoundation.org/join.htm and send
this to your politician of choice by hitting the “GO” button.
a.http://www.fairfoundation.org/update.htm
b.http://fairfoundation.org/quiz/quizanswer.htm
c.http://www.health.state.ny.us/nysdoh/hivaids/aidsny_01/section17.pdf
d.http://www.fairfoundation.org/nih.htm
e.http://www.fairfoundation.org/factslinks.htm
f.http://www.healingwithnutrition.com/cdisease/cardiovascular/cardiovascular.html#A1
g.http://www.fairfoundation.org/estimated_aids_deaths.htm
h.http://www.kff.org/hivaids/loader.cfm?url=/commonspot/security/getfile.cfm&PageID=33622
i.http://www.kff.org/hivaids/loader.cfm?url=/commonspot/security/getfile.cfm&PageID=33622
j.http://www.fairfoundation.org/
k.http://fairfoundation.org/factors.htm
l.http://www.fairfoundation.org/thesixteen.htm
Congress.org is a public service
of
Capitol Advantage and is powered by the award-winning
Capwiz™ grassroots advocacy solution. Capwiz
is used by over 1200 leading non-profits, trade associations and
media websites including AOL, Yahoo!, and MSN. If you would like
to test drive Capwiz for your own organization,
complete this form and we'll have a Capwiz site
customized just for you in just one business day. |
