Congress May Increase Global Health Funding
by Fred Fortin
Press reports are now in that Congress may pass a foreign operations/aid proposed budget that will include almost a billion dollar increase over FY07 spending for global health. According to Laurie Garrett, a Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations, a total of $6.342 billion will be directed to HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, continuing the U.S. trend of emphasis on the three big infectious diseases. But other long-overlooked programs for improving women’s chances of surviving childbirth, providing poor people with clean drinking water and family planning will enjoy vast increases, she says. That’s is, of course, if the President signs off on the proposed budget.
My continuing question is whether or not these kinds of issues are even on the radar screen of American health policy community? And while the U.S. presidential campaigns are heating up when it comes to health care, silence seems to reign supreme on this crucial political front.
