no More than a year ago, President Bush promised $15 billion to fight a global war on AIDS. But like so many of his promises, it's proven to be empty. His most recent budget request for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS was only $200 million - a 7-percent decrease from 2003 funding - even though Congress approved $550 million. Not only has he given drastically less than what Congress and AIDS activists say is necessary to combat the disease, but his administration has so far refused to pay for generic AIDS drugs, bowing to pressure from companies that make name-brand and thus, more expensive drugs. It's a classic case of profit over people, of valuing the all-mighty dollar and your stock portfolio more than living, breathing people.
As a student at the University of Texas I can tell you that Esther Wang has no idea what she's talking about. I wouldn't use her as proof for anything. She's the type of person who would blame George W. Bush for WWII, the zoot suit riots and the death of Jesus Christ.
Might I also add that the reason Bush refused to pay for the generic AIDS drugs is because the companies that make them infringed on the international copyrights of the companies that spent billions of dollars developing them. Why punish a company for researching medical solutions to a disease by giving contracts to companies that steal theyre internationally protected product?
you can't copyright a drug. maybe you mean patent. yes the poor pharm companies. boo hoo. they care more about their profits than people dying and bush cares more about them than he does about people with AIDS.
Yes. But federal and international drug inspectors haven't released the drugs to be used, much the same as the imported prescription drugs issue, thus making the actual total spent way smaller (due to the actual product used being way under the target) than the allotted (billions) budget. The research comes to a halt in the process, further driving what is spent down, compared to the allotted budget. There are reasons this happens that are way beyond the control of one man. He signed documents to allow for the funding, but he is not the scientific researcher, the pharm companies, the inspectors, the laboratory, etc. He is one man trying to fund it all. Don't get fooled by hotlinks to slanted articles. It's the same issue with stem cell research. Before BUSH signed the federal funding of it into existence, there was absolutely 0 spent on it from federal funds. And there is furthermore, no "sweeping ban" on stem cell research. Not only is this federal money there, but the private sector can do all it wants to do, much like the AIDS, cancer, etc. researchers have done for decades. It has been proven also that private money donations for research can far outweigh the federal money anyhow. Think about it... how much more of your paycheck a week do you keep when compared to taxes? Well, federal money for research comes out of taxes, yet many private donors give much more to these researchers than the amount they pay in taxes to Uncle Sam. The arguement is a smoke screen diversion of fact. The federal system should not be the only source of funding the research, nor has it ever been. Millions of dollars a semester goes to research out of tuition costs as well... the money is there. The problem is that people expect a cure for a relatively newly discovered disease, and forget that cancer hasn't yet had a cure found for it... so the reality of the debate is that several may never see a cure in thier lifetime. In fact we may never see it. Yet the thousands of polio victims who never saw a cure for polio did not take treatments and allow research to be done on them in vain... they may have very well saved you or me from polio. Time will tell if there is a cure to be found. But we cannot spend every last dime on one item of research. There are other bills to pay. And if congress know that, then we who elect them should realize it too. These protests serve no purpose (meaning that...). If these people wanted to really make a difference, they would expend their time, money and energy in a classroom learnig medicine, and training to beat it themselves... or give of their own money to research... or start another research fund foundation. Yelling about it gets you nothing but a sore throat, and perhaps jail time.
outlaw - you obviously knew what i meant so lets not get into a semantics battle. Regardless of how much the pharm companies make the law is still the law. If someone basically copied a michael moore movie word for word and shot for shot and made money off of it, I'm sure most people would have a problem (rightly so), and it's not like Moore is a poverty stricken fellow
well moore encourages people to go see F9/11 without paying for it so maybe not everyone is in it for the $ in this life. really though, it would cost $9,000 a year per person using the "real" drugs vs $360 a year per person using generics. You don't think that's an extreme difference. Don't these companies get government grants for research? makes you wonder if they're really looking for a cure instead of just treatments. the latter is surely more profitable than the former. it doesn't help that Bush's AIDS czar is a former CEO of Eli Lilly.
Michael Moore charges $40,000 to give a speech and charged familes who suffered losses at Columbine and on 9/11 to see his film. The only thing that matters to Moore is the money. And in response to Moore encouraging people to see the movie for free, his lawyers are currently attempting to sue a website that provided the information on how one could download F9/11 for free. With Moore, it's all about the money.
well he showed it to 3,000 people for free in Crawford i dunno anything about the charging families of those tragedies. that would be disappointing if true. do you recall where you read that?
How did "he" do it? "He" wasn't even there. "He" chickened out and was a no show. The movie played in a lot of places for 1 weekend.
but he lent the Crawford Peace House a print of the movie. I don't see any reports of him charging them for it.
outlaw - the reason he did it was for free publicity. It got his movie in the paper didnt it? You knew it happened didn't you? Everything has another purpose with this guy
