WASHINGTON, May 6 (UPI) -- Last year, the federal government spent close to $9 billion domestically for AIDS treatment and prevention, or about $21,000 per domestic sufferer.
Despite such abundant resources, 1,100 American AIDS sufferers are on waiting lists for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program. Further, over the next few years, the United States is pledged to contribute a mere $14 per non-American victim -- $500 million -- to the Global AIDS Fund. This sum is particularly low considering about 99 percent of the world's 40 million AIDS sufferers live outside the United States.
Of total domestic AIDS spending, Citizens Against Government Waste, the group of which I am president, estimates nearly $1 billion this year will go to duplicative or questionable programs. These vital resources should be transferred to the Global AIDS Fund or to ADAP.
Consider the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act.
While the government will spend $1.9 billion on the act in 2003, approximately 40 percent will go to basic medical care, including massage therapy and acupuncture, and basic living assistance such as daycare and housing. These might be useful, except that other federal programs already address such needs. Congress should eliminate the duplication and transfer resources to ADAP to ensure people with AIDS never go without life prolonging drugs.
Many CARE Act programs, other than ADAP, are rife with waste.
In Broward County, Fla., for example, $1 million in AIDS money went unspent, including $172,000 for two substance abuse programs; an entire $62,000 grant for a food bank program; and $52,000 for a day care program. In Los Angeles, $22 million went unspent. That $23 million could have provided antiretroviral therapy to all 1,100 ADAP waiting list members for two years.
Another duplicative program is the Housing Opportunities for People With AIDS program, which will consume $278 million in federal funds this year. HOPWA's mission, to provide housing to low-income people with AIDS, is duplicative of Section 8 of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974.
Within HOPWA, for example, is the Tampa Hillsborough Action Plan in Florida, which receives $450,000 a year to provide housing to AIDS patients. THAP lavishes its executives with SUVs that come with $45,000 maintenance accounts, and tickets to Tampa professional sporting events.
The estimated $10,000 THAP spent on sports tickets could have brought one person off an ADAP waiting list for a year.
The most egregious and riskiest waste of taxpayer money comes in the form of prevention that seem closer to dating services and sex technique classes than sources of reliable clinical information on safety and prevention.
The spending guidelines for the Centers for Disease Control, which will allocate $795 million to domestic AIDS prevention this year, say federally funded programs are not to promote sex or obscenity. Nevertheless, CAGW has found a number of its programs clearly do just that.
-- One AIDS non-profit which received a $700,000 grant will sponsor "GUYWATCH: Blow by Blow" in late-February. The program wonders, "What tricks do you want to share to make your man tremble with delight?"
-- The University of California-San Francisco AIDS Health Project, which received a $633,765 grant from the CDC for prevention in fiscal 2001 and continually receives nearly 85 percent of its funding from government sources, sponsored a workshop this month on physical intimacy, focusing on "holding, kissing..."
-- AID Atlanta, Inc., which received more than $3.5 million from the government in fiscal 2000 and only $1.2 million in private contributions, sponsors "Deeper Love: A Workshop for Gay and Bisexual Men of African Descent" that addresses such subjects as dating, relationships, and erotica. The program lists the following topics of discussion: "Dirty talk: what makes it good; Tossing salad; Strollin' in the park, through the trails; The art of latex; safety vs. trust." AID Atlanta, Inc. also sponsors "Slipping and Sliding," where men can explore their desires and how to fulfill them.
Dan Savage, founder of Gay City of Seattle, a non-profit created to address AIDS health and prevention issues, put his finger on the problem in 2000.
When asked why he had distanced himself from the organization he created, he said, "The group is primarily concerned with gay men's social lives, not their health."
Clearly, at a time when people with AIDS in America are waiting for money for medicines, waste, duplication, and abuse are an infuriating misuse of resources. Considering the global AIDS crisis, it is a scandal. Congress and the Bush Administration should move immediately to eliminate CARE Act duplication, crack down on CDC mismanagement, and focus resources to save more lives.
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(Tom Schatz is president of Citizens Against Government Waste, a non-partisan government watchdog organization.)
