The Department of State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2008

Floor Speech

THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE, FOREIGN OPERATIONS AND RELATED PROGRAMS APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008 -- (House of Representatives - June 21, 2007)

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Mr. WALBERG. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of the amendment offered by my friend and colleague, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts), and in support of this evidence-based approach to reducing the spread of HIV and AIDS.

The AIDS epidemic in Africa is a serious problem that demands serious results. However, I also ha d the privilege of seeing firsthand the success of Uganda's ABC program when I traveled to Uganda a couple of years ago to visit my daughter who's a missionary there and also a health educator dealing specifically with HIV/AIDS. Also meeting with who has now become adopted into our family, Mama Nabali, who is a young woman with three children who has HIV as a result of behavior issues related specifically to a husband who was unfaithful in many, many ways.

It has been interesting to note that in Uganda as well as other countries that are now using the ABC program authorized and pushed by the First Lady and the President, President Museveni of Uganda, in each of those cases there is a significant decline in reported numbers of sexual partners, that's the behavior portion of it, and a significant decline in the numbers of unmarried youth who are sexually active, which is the abstinence portion of it.

Authorizing legislation that requires 33 percent of prevention funds to be spent in abstinence-until-mar riage programming is the best way to address this problem because it's a proven, successful method of reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS. There is growing evidence that partner reduction is the single most important factor in reducing HIV/AIDS prevalence rates.

According to the PEPFAR Third Report to Congress, ``Of the countless developments taking place in the global fight against the AIDS pandemic, perhaps the single most important in recent years is the growing number of nations in which there is clear evidence of declining HIV prevalence as a result of changes in sexual behavior.''

Furthermore, no country with a generalized epidemic that has relied on condom prevention alone has reported a decline in HIV/AIDS prevalence rates. Because studies have shown that the abstinence-until-marriage method is producing the best results, I urge my colleagues to consider the merits of the Pitts amendment and support this important and, need I say, life-changing and lifesaving legislation.

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