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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 7 months

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George W. Bush, the infamously anti-gay and neoconservative former U.S. president who invaded Iraq on a lie, has criticized congressional Republicans for threatening to defund the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a largely successful African HIV-prevention program that he launched back in 2003. “There is no program more pro-life” than PEPFAR, he wrote.

Though PEPFAR is estimated to have saved over 25 million lives, its funding is set to expire on September 30. Congressional Republicans are falsely claiming that the program promotes abortion and using its re-funding as a bargaining chip in budget negotiations. Republicans have threatened to defund the entire federal government at the end of the month unless they’re allowed to slash military diversity programs and military aid to Ukraine and to increase anti-immigration measures at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“We are on the verge of ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic. To abandon our commitment now would forfeit two decades of unimaginable progress and raise further questions about the worth of America’s word,” Bush wrote in a Wednesday opinion article in The Washington Post.

Bush said that his Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, his White House chief of staff Joshua Bolton, and his senior policy advisor Michael Gerson had advised him to begin PEPFAR. Gerson reportedly told Bush that it would be “a source of national shame” if the U.S. didn’t try to help end the worldwide HIV epidemic.

Bush’s opinion article cited words that Gerson himself had written in defense of PEPFAR in November 2017: “Are Republicans in Congress prepared to squander a legacy of GOP leadership that has won the United States considerable goodwill around the world? Among evangelical Christians, what definition of being ‘pro-life’ does not include saving millions of lives from preventable disease and death?”

Adding his own thoughts, Bush wrote, “There is no program more pro-life than one which has saved more than 25 million lives. I urge Congress to reauthorize PEPFAR for another five years without delay.”

During his presidency, Bush backed a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage, and used bans on same-sex marriage to help him win re-election in 2004. While he served, 27 states banned same-sex marriage.

Despite Bush’s anti-gay record, PEPFAR was “a sound investment in U.S. security,” Ben Plumley, the former CEO of the now-defunct international HIV organization Pangea, said in a now-deleted interview with Hornet.com. Plumley said the program “generated very significant goodwill towards the United States” and countered “the spread of radical Islam or radical anti-Western attitudes in sub-Saharan Africa.”

Plumley also noted that most HIV transmissions in sub-Saharan Africa are heterosexual, meaning that conservative Republicans could support PEPFAR without worrying about seeming too overtly supportive of the LGBTQ+ community.

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gwydionmisha · 9 months

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#HIV #PEPFAR #Anthony Fauci #Republican War on Health #News

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officialyourdailyinspiration · 7 months

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by Emily Washburn | Focus on the Family joined 12 pro-life organizations on Tuesday opposing the multi-year renewal of PEPFAR, a federal HIV/AIDS relief program worth billions of dollars, over concerns the program’s funding supports pro-abortion organizations. Established by former President George W. Bush in 2003, The President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR) works with government contractors and international…

#Your Daily Inspiration #Christian news #morning headlines #Focus on The Family #Daily Citizen #PEPFAR #Emily Washburn #pro-life #abortion #President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief

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mumbwanblog · 5 months

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Breaking Barriers: Family Planning Integration in Anti-Retroviral Treatment Clinics

Family Planning has been Integrated into Anti-Retroviral Treatment Clinics. People living with HIV can access contraceptives such as Jadelle, injectable contraceptives (depo and cyana), loop and oral contraceptives from your ART clinics. Men and women living with HIV can also collect condoms from their ART clinics.Family Panning is for everyone regardless of your HIV status.

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#Condomise #GetTested #HIVfree #HIVPrevention #PACT #PEPFAR #USAID #Zambia Intergrated Health #zambiaEndingAIDSCampaign

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worldaidsday · 5 months

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Congressional Commemoration and Ministerial Roundtable.

"We have to work hard to sustain the response and we have to do that in three dimensions: Political leadership; Programmatic sustainability; Financial support."

November 30th at 8:00 AM GMT+1. World AIDS Day 2023 Congressional Commemoration and Ministerial Roundtable. UNAIDS

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#round table #pepfar #unaids #let communities lead #health community based organizations #world aids day #united states #events #Youtube

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dontfightyourwaralone · 5 months

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#november 2023 #2023 #articles #usa today #eduardo cuevas #pepfar #HIV #healthcare #republicans #(are the worst)

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urbtnews · 8 months

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uboat53 · 8 months

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Yikes, how many lives are MAGA Republicans willing to sacrifice at the altar of owning the libs?

PEPFAR is, arguably, one of the most successful programs that the US government has ever run and is probably the greatest legacy of one of the two living former Republican presidents. The fact that even this program isn't safe from culture war freakouts really drives home how mindlessly destructive MAGA really is.

#george w bush #pepfar #culture wars #maga #politics #us politics #republicans

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carolynmappleton · 10 months

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You can help!

#PEPFAR #hiv #aids #aids pandemic #hiv aids #Congress #reauthorization

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madamspeaker · 1 year

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Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi - Celebrating 20 years of PEPFAR (24th February, 2023)

#nancy pelosi #madam speaker #predictably some leftists are mad because she said nice words about Bush #but pepfar is a genuinely great thing that he did #it has saved lives

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 9 months

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You might assume that Dr. Anthony Fauci, after 54 years working at the National Institutes of Health and helping save countless lives, has retired so he can rest. However, Dr. Fauci doesn’t have time to retire.

Last month, Fauci joined Georgetown University School of Medicine’s Department of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases as a Distinguished Professor. He was also appointed to the university’s McCourt School of Public Policy.

“I’ve also been busy lecturing and writing my memoir, and since I’ve been out of the NIH for seven months, I’m not following the ins and outs of the government, but I am paying attention to what’s going on with PEPFAR,” he tells me.

PEPFAR is the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which was signed into law 20 years ago this summer by President George W. Bush. It serves as a conduit to providing HIV medications to individuals in impoverished nations who would otherwise lack access to these drugs.

When I spoke to Fauci a couple years ago on the 40th anniversary of the discovery of HIV, he cited the opportunity to be the architect of the program as one of his greatest achievements. "It is the largest commitment by any nation to address a single disease in history," he told me. "It's been an honor to help lead this. I really value my participation in this program that has already saved 15-18 million (in 2021) lives around the world."

“PEPFAR impact has been truly remarkable,” Fauci told me during our phone call Friday evening. "It is one of this country’s greatest global health policies in history. It’s been a resounding success, and has saved at least 25 million lives worldwide and it provides antiretroviral treatments for over 20 million people worldwide.”

However, groundless claims from anti-abortion activists have put the program in jeopardy. Conservative and anti-abortion groups sent a letter to Republicans in Congress who are responsible for PEPFAR’s reauthorization. The letter said that PEPFAR funds are “used by nongovernmental organizations that promote abortions and push a radical gender ideology abroad.” They provided no evidence to back their claim.

Also, the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation released a report that said Congress needs to “reassess” PEPFAR. The report claimed, “The Biden Administration has misused the program as a well-funded vehicle to promote its domestic radical social agenda overseas, as it has done with other foreign aid programs.” This so-called report also did not provide any proof.

As a result, Republicans in Congress are threatening not to reauthorize the program.

“The idea that this program would be interrupted, despite its overwhelming success, is unfortunate,” Fauci said. “There’s a real danger to associate the program with cultural issues as opposed to scientific ones that clearly show PEPFAR is saving lives.”

“It seems paradoxical that abortion rights groups who fight for life want to interfere with a program that has saved millions of lives,” Fauci pointed out. “If the program doesn’t function, lives aren’t saved, millions of them.”

Instead of castigating the program, shouldn't these groups, as well as all Americans, be celebrating the 20th anniversary of this milestone? “What’s ironic is that it was signed into law by a conservative Republican President, and it is without question George W. Bush’s greatest achievement. It took years to put together, in a bipartisan way, and it is one of the world’s signature global health initiatives. The thought of it not being authorized is not only dangerous, but disastrous.”

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deadpresidents · 1 year

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When President George W. Bush invaded Iraq 20 years ago this week, I was in the middle of the smoke and chaos of that cataclysmic war that became his best-known legacy. I wrote countless columns opposing an invasion, then I was scathing as I covered the war, and I still see it as a practical and moral catastrophe.

But wait -- what if there’s something Bush did that was even more consequential than the invasion of Iraq? And what if it was something astonishingly good?

This is awkward, but I have to acknowledge that Bush deserves credit for the single best policy of any President in my lifetime. It’s called PEPFAR and if you haven’t heard of it, that’s part of the problem.

So my colleagues and I in New York Times Opinion made this video essay about an initiative that Bush created 20 years ago that saved 25 million lives. With the anniversary of the Iraq invasion, there’s lots of commentary about his miscalculations and failures, and there should be. But we liberals also have to acknowledge that the most important humanitarian program of modern times wasn’t started by a progressive we admire but by a conservative evangelical whose policies we deplored.

-- Nicholas Kristof, New York Times