Ryan White courageously fought AIDS-related discrimination and helped educate the Nation about HIV/AIDS.

Ryan White was an Indiana teenager with hemophilia who contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion. He courageously fought AIDS-related discrimination and helped educate the Nation about his disease.

Ryan White was diagnosed with AIDS at age 13. He and his mother Jeannie White fought for his right to attend school, gaining international attention. Ryan was featured on countless television shows and magazine covers and was the subject of a television movie about his life. Ryan White died on April 8, 1990, at the age of 18, just a few months before Congress passed the AIDS bill that bears his name-the Ryan White CARE (Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency) Act. The legislation has been reauthorized three times since-in 1996, 2000, and most recently in with the most recent 2006 enactment renaming the program as the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program.

Ryan's mother, Jeannie White-Ginder, continues to speak out about HIV/AIDS stigma and discrimination. She has been a speaker at numerous event sponsored by the Health Resources and Services Administration's HIV/AIDS Bureau for programs funded to deliver Ryan White services. Mrs. White-Ginder made the following comments in her letter to attendees at the 2006 Ryan White Grantee Meeting and Clinical Update. She will be a featured speaker in a special workshop to be held at the 2008 Ryan White Grantee Meeting.