July 2006

NORA Bi-Monthly Meeting
On Monday, July 10th the National Organizations Responding to AIDS (NORA) held its bi-monthly meeting at the American Public Health Institute in Washington D.C. NORA is composed of national organizations that are interested in working on the elimination of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Speakers included AIDS Action Political Affairs Director, Bill McColl, Government Affairs Director, Donna Crews, and Executive Director, Rebecca Haag.

The meeting began with Mr. McColl giving the members an update on the status of the reauthorization of the Ryan White Care Act. Mr. McColl explained that the legislation will likely pass this year. The big issue holding up the legislation is disagreement on a formula for allocating money. Since neither HIV nor AIDS data collection systems across the country are optimal and more importantly their effectiveness varies from state to state, coming up with a formula that pleases everyone and is equitable is proving difficult. Congressional staffers, however, have spent an enormous amount of time and energy working on the reauthorization of the CARE Act, and are most likely “not going to let it go without a fight,” McColl said.

The meeting continued with an update on the fiscal year 2007 appropriations given by Donna Crews. She explained that the bill has passed the House Appropriations full committee with the inclusion of an increase on the minimum wage. The bill has not yet been brought to the House floor since it contains the controversial amendment that has proven difficult for the House leadership to accept. The House version does have an additional $4 billion over President Bush’s request with a $70 million increase in funding for HIV medications and an $88 million increase in prevention funding.

Ms. Crews explained that the Senate will mark up their version of the bill during the week of the July 17th with a subcommittee hearing on Tuesday, July 18th followed by a full committee hearing on Thursday, July 20th. AIDS organizations are working to have additional funding included in the Senate version of the bill.

Next, keynote speaker and AIDS Action Executive Director Rebecca Haag began by introducing herself to the NORA members as Ms. Haag recently became Executive Director of AIDS Action on March 1st. In her remarks she stressed establishing measurable outcomes to evaluate progress and a more general policy approach to addressing the epidemic. Haag worried that without a measurement of what is being accomplished supporters may begin to wonder where their money, time, and energy is going. “Measured progress gives people hope,” said Ms. Haag. She explained that prevention is our best weapon in the fight against AIDS until there is a cure. We have to be able to talk about sex and substance abuse in this country so that we can teach people how to protect themselves against HIV.

Ms. Haag concluded the meeting by asking members of NORA to work together to become part of a broader discussion moving forward in the leadership of HIV. We need political leadership, national leadership, community leadership, and individual leadership to say in x number of years we will no longer have an HIV epidemic. Ms. Haag spoke to the idea that success in fighting the AIDS epidemic is inextricably tied to larger societal issues such as poverty and access to health care. “How effective is routine testing without routine health care?” she asked.

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