Health - HIV / AIDS

HIV / AIDS

Statements and Letters

Archived Documents (1999 and Earlier)

Introduction

I. Background

Defeating the HIV/AIDS epidemic is one of Congressman Henry Waxman's highest health priorities. As chairman of the Health and Environment Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee from 1979 through 1994, he was the foremost congressional advocate of an aggressive national response to the AIDS epidemic. Under his chairmanship, the subcommittee conducted over 30 hearings on AIDS, beginning early in the epidemic´s history. Since the early 1980s Rep. Waxman has written and helped enact federal legislation that has helped fund the search for a cure and brought meaningful relief to people with HIV/AIDS. As the Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, he continues to champion federal investments into HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, and research.

II. The Reagan Years: The Failure of National Leadership

In 1982 Rep. Waxman convened the first congressional hearing on AIDS. At that time the disease was perceived as an epidemic of Kaposi's sarcoma, a rare type of tumor associated with the as-yet unnamed Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

While the epidemic expanded and scientific understanding of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and its modes of transmission became clearer, the federal government under the Reagan Administration consistently refused to commit the resources and effort necessary to provide urgently needed research, health care and preventive services. Indeed, President Ronald Reagan refused to mention AIDS publicly until 1987, after 19,000 Americans had already died of AIDS.

In the 1980s Rep. Waxman worked to bring government funding to the fight against AIDS. In the face of the Reagan administration´s resistance he helped enact legislation that provided for medical research and public education on AIDS, including the Public Health Emergencies Act of 1983, the Health Research Extension Act of 1984, the Preventive Health Services Amendments of 1984, and the Health Research Extension Act of 1985.

In a significant departure from Reagan administration policy, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop played an instrumental role in raising the public profile of the AIDS epidemic through calls for public education about AIDS and safe sex practices, including the use of condoms. Rep. Waxman joined Dr. Koop in 1987 to rebuke television networks for " "media malpractice" in refusing to carry condom ads.

In 1988 Rep. Waxman and Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) sponsored the Health Omnibus Programs Extension Act of 1988 (HOPE Act), legislation that enhanced AIDS prevention programs, care and treatment networks, and research initiatives. The HOPE Act also created the National Commission on AIDS.

In the early 1990s, Rep. Waxman spearheaded the drive to fight Rep. William Dannemeyer´s (R-CA) bill to enforce mandatory HIV testing. Several groups joined Rep. Waxman in the successful attempt to stop the bill, including medical authorities, the HIV/AIDS community, and the Bush Administration. They agreed that widespread, voluntary HIV tests were the best way to ensure that people at risk sought testing. Rep. Waxman also held hearings on the Food and Drug Administration´s (FDA´s) efforts to address the concerns of the HIV/AIDS community by speeding the approval and distribution of new drugs through innovative regulatory mechanisms like "parallel track" and "expanded access."

III. Legislative Action in the 1990s

After years of negotiation and effort, Rep. Waxman wrote the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Emergency Act of 1990. Named for an HIV-positive Indiana boy whose community sought to prevent him from attending school, the CARE Act established comprehensive health care programs for people with HIV/AIDS, as well as grants to states, cities, and clinics for prevention, counseling, testing, diagnostic services, and early medical treatment. "Having missed our opportunity to provide an ounce of prevention," announced Rep. Waxman, "we must now prepare to pay for pounds and pounds of cure." During the years since the Republicans gained control of the House, Rep. Waxman has continued his work on the CARE Act, playing a critical role in reauthorizing this legislation in both 1996 and 2000.  

Concerned about the lack of coordination among the research activities sponsored and conducted by NIH on HIV/AIDS, Rep. Waxman wrote a law to create an office at the NIH to better organize these activities. It created the Office of AIDS Research, which today formulates scientific policy and recommends the allocation of HIV/AIDS research resources at NIH.

IV. HIV/AIDS Today

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), over one million Americans are living with HIV today, and 24 to 27% of these people are unaware of their HIV infection. In addition, the number of people living with AIDS is increasing, as effective new drug therapies keep HIV-infected persons healthy longer and dramatically reduce the death rate.

Rep. Waxman has used his position as Ranking Member of the House Government Reform Committee to advocate for an evidence-based approach to HIV/AIDS prevention strategy and to ensure that funds devoted to finding a cure are not diverted to other programs. He has called for an increase in funding both for research and for the distribution of affordable life-saving medications, especially to those individuals who lack adequate health insurance or are living in developing regions. Rep. Waxman remains committed to supporting proven prevention strategies, including needle exchange programs.

Rep. Waxman has also fought abstinence-only education programs, funded by the Administration at $170 million in fiscal year 2005 alone, that promote abstinence from sexual activity without teaching basic facts about contraception. Many of these programs use curricula that distort information about the effectiveness of contraceptives, misrepresent the risks of abortion, blur religion and science, treat stereotypes about girls and boys as scientific fact, and contain basic scientific errors. The Administration has also pushed to promote abstinence-only education programs in global HIV/AIDS prevention efforts.

Since its passage in 1990, the Ryan White CARE Act has been widely hailed as a great success, providing lifesaving drugs and a full range of medical care and support services care to hundreds of thousands of people who otherwise would have gone without. Authorization for the Ryan White CARE Act expired in September 2005 and new legislation must be passed in the 109th Congress to requthorize it. Along with a bipartisan and bicameral group, Rep. Waxman is actively involved in working to reauthorize this critical law. Rep. Waxman is committed to ensuring that any new legislation will permit the CARE Act to continue to meet its goal of improving the quality and availability of care for persons with HIV/AIDS and their families throughout the United States.

For general information, you may wish to review the following Congressional Research Service reports on HIV/AIDS policy.

AIDS in the Caribbean and Central America

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria: Background and Current Issues

HIV/AIDS International Programs: Appropriations, FY2003-FY2006

AIDS Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC): Problems, Responses, and Issues for Congress

HIV/AIDS Today Fact Sheets

Chairman Waxman's Oversight Agenda on HIV/AIDS

Statements and Letters

Archived Documents (1999 and Earlier)