On June 19th, the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education approved a fiscal year 2008 appropriations bill that reduces funding for the Community-Based Abstinence Education programs by $28.5 million.
These programs have been found to routinely teach medically inaccurate information about contraception and HIV/AIDS and mandate teaching that sex outside of a heterosexual marriage "is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects." In April 2007, the Department of Health and Human Services released a federally funded report conducted by Mathematica Policy Research Inc. that found that these programs have no impact, as youth who participated in these programs showed no difference in either the age they first had sex or in the number of partners from those who had not participated in an abstinence-only until marriage program.
"We applaud Chairman Harkin and the subcommittee for listening to the overwhelming evidence that these programs are ineffective and based on narrow right-wing ideology," said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese. "We urge the Senate to maintain these funding cuts for abstinence education and instead fund HIV prevention based on science and proven effectiveness."
The bill also provides approximately $31 million in additional funding for the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act, including $25 million for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program.
"The additional funding for the Ryan White CARE Act, while welcomed, unfortunately does not make up for the years of neglect these programs have been forced to endure over the past many years," continued Solmonese. "HIV/AIDS remains a crisis in our nation, especially among communities of color. Although this is an important first step in turning around the pattern of funding cuts, we urge the Senate to consider providing an additional increase for Ryan White so that those on the front lines of the epidemic can meet the significant need for lifesaving services."
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