Archive for the 'About HIV/AIDS' Category

Congressional Hearing on HIV/AIDS: CDC says it needs more money for prevention

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, under the leadership of its Chairman, Congressman Henry A. Waxman, held a hearing on Tuesday, September 16, entitled "The Domestic Epidemic is Worse than We Thought: A Wake-Up Call for HIV Prevention".  The hearing included testimony from:

  • Julie Gerberding, MD, MPH, Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
  • Kevin Fenton, MD, Ph D, Director, National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
  • Anthony S. Fauci, MD, Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health
  • David Holtgrave, Ph D, Professor and Chair, Department of Health, Behavior and Society, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

At this hearing, Gerberding and Fenton submitted (at Congressman Waxman’s request) a sample budget that reflected their professional judgement of what it would take to change the course of the epidemic in the US.  That budget would be more than double the amount requested by the Administration for FY2009.

Two days later, Dr. Fenton addressed the US Conference on AIDS on the topic "The Future of HIV Prevention in the US", and I’ll be posting notes on that session soon.

You can watch a recording of the hearing here.

You can see the entire transcript here, or you can download PDFs of the individual testimonies:

Testimony of Julie Gerberding

CDC Professional Judgement Budget

Figures for Julie Gerberding Testimony

Testimony of Anthony Fauci

Slides for Anthony Fauci Testimony

Internet Outreach

The National Coalition of STD Directors has a set of guidelines for conducing outreach and public health communications using Internet-based methods.  This is a very hot topic in HIV prevention right now, but there are very few guidelines or documented “best practices”, but the Deputy Executive Director of NASTAD specifically recomended these guidelines for all of us at a workshop this morning.  You can see the documents here.

Get the Facts About HIV/AIDS in American Sign Language!