In an candid Opinion Editorial entitled "Are You Serious??", the FAIR Foundation has issued an open letter to President Obama chastizing him for his World AIDS Day pledge of another $50 million for HIV/AIDS.
Palm Desert, California (PRWEB) December 06, 2011
In an candid Opinion Editorial entitled "Are You Serious??", the FAIR Foundation has issued an open letter to President Obama chastising him for his World AIDS Day pledge of another $50 million for HIV/AIDS.
The FAIR Foundation opinion editorial questions if Obama has forgotten that his 2012 HIV/AIDS budget request of taxpayer dollars is already $28.3 billion and asks if the President has been told by his administration that over one-third of a trillion dollars has been spent on HIV disease since its inception.
FAIR also asks the President if he is aware that his National Institutes of Health (NIH) is spending less than $200 per patient in research on virtually every disease, including over 6,000 rare illnesses that receive pennies, while the NIH is spending over $3,000 research dollars on behalf of every patient with HIV/AIDS?
FAIR's letter points out that President Obama has been crisscrossing the country calling for fairness in taxes paid by all Americans and FAIR inquires of the President if he thinks the numbers above are “fair” to non-HIV patients.
A member of the FAIR Foundation’s Board of Directors, Ray Hill, also addresses the President. The letter points out that Hill was one of the most strident HIV/AIDS patient advocates who, for decades, fought for increased HIV funding. He was arrested for his advocacy and he eventually won his legal case in the United States Supreme Court (U.S. Supreme Court—Houston v. Hill, 482 U.S. 451) when Supreme Court Justice William Brennan labeled Mr. Hill a "Citizen Provocateur." The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) awarded Ray its Lifetime Achievement Award for advancing the rights of gay, lesbian and transgender citizens, and he has been voted "gay hero" seven years in a row by the gay community of Houston, Texas.
Hill speaks to the President: “The funding for HIV has become a jobs program with billions of wasted dollars going to administrators in the USA and abroad. It is time for HIV funding to be reduced and redirected to other illnesses that have not had such exorbitant funding.”
FAIR’s letter states that FAIR supports efforts to provide the excellent HIV medicine to patients in poor countries; however FAIR is disgusted at the glee expressed by rock singer Bono at the President’s announcement ceremony when Bono celebrated this increased spending by “every taxpayer in this country.”
In FAIR’s letter to Obama, FAIR points out that in addition to the billions he is forcing taxpayers to spend on HIV/AIDS, billions more are spent annually on behalf of HIV/AIDS by others, including the 50 states, pharmaceutical companies and non-profit organizations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
FAIR then suggests that since Mr. Gates and Mr. Warren Buffet wish to pay more of their combined $90 billion dollars to our country’s treasury, Obama should give them a call and ask them for this extra $50 million he has just pledged.
FAIR's letter continues, “We realize it is an election year and, as the LA Times article states, you are trying to “renew the devotion of the liberal base” that helped elect you but we submit that such blatant pandering is an insult to all HIV/AIDS activists, including our Ray Hill.”
FAIR asks one last question: “Did you not see the results of the 2010 mid-term elections? Please allow us to remind you: American citizens assessed the trillion dollars spent by the Bush administration and the Congress at that time, the four trillion dollars you and your Congress have spent, and then these fed up citizens shouted within their voting booths and booted a majority of the big spenders out of Congress.”
FAIR's letter to the President reminds him that these voters are returning in 11 months and of their message to him and to Congress: STOP SPENDING TAXPAYER DOLLARS.
You may read the FAIR Foundation's rebuke of President Obama below or by clicking here.
The FAIR Foundation is a national non-profit organization with thousands of members and millions of supporters in all fifty states and the District of Columbia. FAIR's Board of Directors consists of twenty-seven transplant surgeons, medical directors and patient advocates.
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