Researchers, organizations urge Secretary of State Kerry to support AIDS funding

"Saying they are 'gravely concerned about reports that the Obama Administration's FY 2014 budget requests for PEPFAR and the Global Fund [to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria] fail to provide adequate resources,' researchers and physicians from programs, centers and institutions leading the international AIDS response sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry Friday, urging him to speak up for funding that will back policy and pursue the goal of an AIDS-free generation," the Center for Global Health Policy's "Science Speaks" blog reports. The letter -- signed by "leaders of global health programs at Harvard Medical School, Yale University, John Hopkins University School of Medicine, Columbia University and Emory University's School of Public Health," as well as other research institutions and AIDS organizations -- states, "A financial retreat from the United States government on the heels of promoting an ambitious PEPFAR plan to end AIDS and rejuvenating the Global Fund leadership and mission would be nothing short of catastrophic," according to the blog, which notes the Obama administration's FY 2014 budget request has not yet been released (Barton, 2/4).