Global AIDS Funding Overblown, Critics Say

Some Experts Say AIDS Spending Takes Away From More Pressing Health Needs

(AP)  As World AIDS Day is marked on Monday, some experts are growing more outspoken in complaining that AIDS is eating up funding at the expense of more pressing health needs.

They argue that the world has entered a post-AIDS era in which the disease's spread has largely been curbed in much of the world, Africa excepted.

"AIDS is a terrible humanitarian tragedy, but it's just one of many terrible humanitarian tragedies," said Jeremy Shiffman, who studies health spending at Syracuse University.

Roger England of Health Systems Workshop, a think tank based in the Caribbean island of Grenada, goes further. He argues that UNAIDS, the U.N. agency leading the fight against the disease, has outlived its purpose and should be disbanded.

"The global HIV industry is too big and out of control. We have created a monster with too many vested interests and reputations at stake, ... too many relatively well paid HIV staff in affected countries, and too many rock stars with AIDS support as a fashion accessory," he wrote in the British Medical Journal in May.

Paul de Lay, a director at UNAIDS, disagrees. It's valid to question AIDS' place in the world's priorities, he says, but insists the turnaround is very recent and it would be wrong to think the epidemic is under control.

"We have an epidemic that has caused between 55 million and 60 million infections," de Lay said. "To suddenly pull the rug out from underneath that would be disastrous."

U.N. officials roughly estimate that about 33 million people worldwide have HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Scientists say infections peaked in the late 1990s and are unlikely to spark big epidemics beyond Africa.

In developed countries, AIDS drugs have turned the once-fatal disease into a manageable illness.

England argues that closing UNAIDS would free up its $200 million annual budget for other health problems such as pneumonia, which kills more children every year than AIDS, malaria and measles combined.

"By putting more money into AIDS, we are implicitly saying it's OK for more kids to die of pneumonia," England said.

His comments touch on the bigger complaint: that AIDS hogs money and may damage other health programs.

By 2006, AIDS funding accounted for 80 percent of all American aid for health and population issues, according to the Global Health Council.

In Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda and elsewhere, donations for HIV projects routinely outstrip the entire national health budgets.

In a 2006 report, Rwandan officials noted a "gross misallocation of resources" in health: $47 million went to HIV, $18 million went to malaria, the country's biggest killer, and $1 million went to childhood illnesses.

"There needs to be a rational system for how to apportion scarce funds," said Helen Epstein, an AIDS expert who has consulted for UNICEF, the World Bank, and others.

AIDS advocates say their projects do more than curb the virus; their efforts strengthen other health programs by providing basic health services.

But across Africa, about 1.5 million doctors and nurses are still needed, and hospitals regularly run out of basic medicines.

Experts working on other health problems struggle to attract money and attention when competing with AIDS.

"Diarrhea kills five times as many kids as AIDS," said John Oldfield, executive vice president of Water Advocates, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that promotes clean water and sanitation.

"Everybody talks about AIDS at cocktail parties," Oldfield said. "But nobody wants to hear about diarrhea," he said.

These competing claims on public money are likely to grow louder as the world financial meltdown threatens to deplete health dollars.

"We cannot afford, in this time of crisis, to squander our investments," Dr. Margaret Chan, WHO's director-general, said in a recent statement.

Some experts ask whether it makes sense to have UNAIDS, WHO, UNICEF, the World Bank, the Global Fund plus countless other AIDS organizations, all serving the same cause.

"I do not want to see the cause of AIDS harmed," said Shiffman of Syracuse University. But "For AIDS to crowd out other issues is ethically unjust."

De Lay argues that the solution is not to reshuffle resources but to boost them.

"To take money away from AIDS and give it to diarrheal diseases or onchocerciasis (river blindness) or leishmaniasis (disfiguring parasites) doesn't make any sense," he said. "We'd just be doing a worse job in everything else."

[missingamerica]

I ALMOST agree with you, Credibility2.

But a disease that is so costly and so often fatal and CAN be spread by a variety of means needs to be eliminated.

[credibility2]

There is too much emphasis on this preventable disease, while other non-preventable diseases are being pushed back. HIV/AIDS is the result of ignorance and indifference by careless individuals who continue to spread it.

[frogger581]

HIV/AIDS research and prevention is still an important issue to address world wide, mainly because it is one of the few diseases that can be used as a dormant weapon. People can spread this disease for years to many people not knowing that they have it themselves. Yes, this is true of many other diseases. However, the problem is that there are many people, especially in war torn areas of africa, that know they have the disease and spread it knowingly. Its not enough for people to dehumanize women by raping them, they also have to infect them with a disease that they have a highly slim chance of even trying to fight, because they dont have the access or funds to do so. We shouldn''t put this fight on the backburner just because "there are better things to do with our money." Think about that last starbucks coffee you purchased or the last piece of electronic equipment. There are always ways to second guess how our money is spent. Fighting any disease, especially AIDS should not be one of them.

[culturechang]

All they have done is throw money ineffectively at this problem. Most of the US money is funnelled through "religious based charities" who take a skim. The rest is used to preach abstinence....which obviously has not worked or we wouldn''t have an estimated 60 million infections....which is probably also overblown.

They need to focus on a medical cure. This is the only way to beat it. A cure for this virus would like segway into a cure for many other diseases if they would devote to finding it.

Monkeys are immune. There is a way if they want one. I think a lot of religious based groups dont want a cure.

[legacyabq]

MALARIA

DENGUE FEVER

STARVATION


These things are being under-addressed

[rixmix98]

wango2007-

Hey dipstick. You might want to do some big boy research on where AIDS actually originated.

[wango2007-2009]

The homosexuals were the vector of this disease, and that is important to remember.

Yes, yes, we all know that it now infects all due to bisexual people and use of infected needles, but the disease exploded among humans via homosexuals.

We must never forget this no matter what kind of spin homosexual put on the topic to absolve themselves from gulit for contributing to the death of millions.

Homosexuals would like us to believe the disease is spread through "unprotected ***." *** didn''t need to be protected until AIDS spread.

[staycalm]

There is so much suffering in the world among the most innocent of victims. I decided earlier this year that AIDS charities were no longer going to get my dollar, unless they are for children with AIDS. At some point, people have to evaluate every cause as to its worthiness.