U.S. AIDS program makes long-term promises

WASHINGTON, July 26 (UPI) -- While it has drawn much praise, U.S. President George Bush's $40 billion effort to fight AIDS overseas contains an open-ended commitment, observers say.

Bush is expected to sign a bill next week that will authorize $40 billion for The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, which includes help to governments, nonprofits and medical centers to buy drugs and train workers. But questions are being raised about its implied moral commitment to continue to supply drugs for foreign AIDS victims who will need the help for the rest of their lives, The Washington Post reported Saturday.

International health experts point out that once started, AIDS therapy must continue indefinitely, because stopping it can rapidly lead to death, the newspaper said, and so ethicists say it would be immoral to ever remove the financial assistance once it is given.

"We've never really been confronted with this in the international health arena," Paul De Lay, a physician with UNAIDS, a United Nations program in Geneva, told the Post.

Some wonder whether the United States can continue to give AIDS help at this level for the many years it will take to keep recipients alive.