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Clinton: HIV funding unfair

BY GLENN THRUSH | Newsday Washington Bureau

August 24, 2006

WASHINGTON - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is fighting a new federal AIDS funding formula she says will cost New York $40 million, sparking the ire of groups who want more money allocated in southern states.

Clinton (D-N.Y.), along with Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), oppose a new distribution plan for funding under the Ryan White Act, named for an Indiana teen who died in 1990 after contracting the virus through a tainted transfusion.

In May, the proposed changes in the White Act passed 19-1 in committee, with Clinton as the sole dissenter. Based on the changes, officials would distribute funding according to HIV infection rates instead of the number of full-blown AIDS cases, the benchmark in previous years.

New York and other large states such as California and New Jersey have historically received hefty payouts because they have a higher percentage of AIDS patients. Now, smaller states such as Alabama that have seen a marked increase in HIV infections are poised to receive a more substantial piece of the funding pie than they have in the past.

The new formula, which still needs to be approved by the House, will be considered this fall by the Senate.

Since the AIDS epidemic began in the 1980s, about 170,000 New York State residents have been diagnosed with the disease, more than in any other state.

There is a national battle for dollars because federal AIDS funding has been stuck at about $2 billion a year during the Bush administration.

Clinton's position isn't popular with AIDS providers in the South and the National Black Chamber of Commerce, which accused the senator of playing parochial politics at the expense of African-Americans in Gulf Coast states like Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.

"How can anyone knowingly do this to the victims of the Gulf Coast hurricanes? Katrina and Rita were enough; we don't need Hillary!" wrote chamber president Harry Alford in a letter this week to members.

In response, Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines said, "Senator Clinton is doing what she always does: she is standing up for New York."

On the campaign front, Clinton plans to meet tomorrow in New York with anti-war candidate Ned Lamont, who defeated incumbent Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primary earlier this month.