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Bush, Congress and the necessary fight against AIDS

Sen. Rick Santorum clearly states the case for fully funding President Bush's AIDS initiative at $3 billion this year ("Finishing what we started," Op-Ed, yesterday).

We now stand at the deciding moment that will determine how hundreds of millions will live and die. Behind us are years of shameful neglect by the United States and other rich nations, while before us is an immense opportunity to halt the needless AIDS deaths and looming societal chaos by bringing life-saving medications, care and prevention.

Congress and the president must prove the substance of their rhetoric by funding our share to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria with at least $1 billion. The Global Fund is currently funding successfully scaled-up programs across the world and treating 500,000 people infected with AIDS. Waiting for larger donations from Europe or Japan will leave these programs and the future of the Global Fund at risk.

I hope Mr. Santorum and all of his colleagues in both chambers of Congress will support Rep. Nita M. Lowey's amendment adding $1 billion for the global AIDS fight to the foreign pperations bill and its equivalent in the Senate.

While Congress wrestles with the appropriations process this week, the Global Fund's donors meeting in Paris is empty of actual committed donors, thousands of hospital and clinic shelves remain bare of medications and nearly 60,000 families of people with AIDS bury their dead.

ALLISON DINSMORE

Philadelphia