Cheers for AIDS effort

Philadelphia Inquirer: America, says U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, is taking "the first major step in reversing this greatest of humanitarian challenges of the 21st century."
He was talking last week about AIDS, which kills 3 million and infects 42 million people a year, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa.
And so far, on paper at least, Frist is correct. America has taken a giant leap toward controlling the international scourge with Senate approval last week of a laudable $15 billion program to fight AIDS in African and Caribbean nations. The money is to be spent over five years, and up to $1 billion in the coming year would go to the Global Fund to Combat AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
That could be a nice gift. But some concerns mar the bill and its House counterpart. For instance, one-third of the money for AIDS prevention would have to go to programs stressing abstinence until marriage, and fidelity afterward.
That has a wonderful logic and morality to it -- until considering that women in these nations usually have no or little control over their menfolk's sexual activities.
Quiet addition
So it's worth cheering a quiet addition to both chambers' legislation that contains money to educate men about sexual responsibility and respect for women. It deserves to survive a conference committee that will merge the two bills.
The bills also set no minimum on what part of the $15 billion the United States will send to the global fund. It could be up to $1 billion next year -- only if all other nations contribute $2 billion; the actual donation could be a pittance.
And Washington still wants the vast majority of the money to be distributed through a U.S. mechanism, even though the global fund is well-established. That makes little sense.
Pennsylvania's Republican Sen. Arlen Specter has championed the global fund in the past. He should now, as chair and member of two appropriating committees, play a key role in directing more money to the global fund.
According to a new General Accounting Office report, the fund is so short of donations that it may not be able to continue its level of grants in the third year.