Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010

DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2010 -- (House of Representatives - July 24, 2009)

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Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My amendment does not reduce by one penny NIH funding at all. My amendment simply prohibits what is clearly becoming an endless stream of repeating and repeating and repeating and repeating studies of HIV at ever-greater cost. It deals with the $325,000 to research Thai sex workers who also use drugs. What a surprise. We've already gone into extensive legislation to deal with that criminal activity on a worldwide basis. It also deals with prostitutes in China and alcohol and drug users in Russia. We're simply looking at just $5 million over three grants.

Mr. Chairman, I think when we look at this $5 million, we have to consider this: A flight to Bangkok is $9,000. A ride on BART across town is $3.10. On the government rate for less than $200, people who want to study the growth of HIV can come here to Washington, D.C., where we have a 25 percent rate. Mr. Chairman, we have studied this. As a matter of fact, we have studied HIV contraction from dangerous behavior, particularly drug and alcohol, over 200 times. We've studied HIV at the National Institutes of Health over 1,400 times. We've studied just about everything one could imagine. But just so that we not miss one, how about HIV Prevention with Young Men Who Have Sex with Men: What Young Men Themselves Say is Needed? This was the Medical College of Wisconsin. We have studied it all. We have studied it for decades. This money needs to be spent on more than just study. It has to be spent on prevention and cure.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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