Connie Morella: “today I am joined by the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) in introducing the Microbicides Development Act of…”

“today I am joined by the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) in introducing the Microbicides Development Act of 2000, legislation to promote the development of a new technology for preventing sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV. Across this country and around the world, AIDS is rapidly becoming a women's epidemic. In the United States, women constitute the fastest growing group of those newly infected with HIV. Worldwide almost half of the 14,000 adults infected daily with HIV in 1998 were women, of whom nine out of 10 live in developing countries. In Africa, teenage girls have infection rates five to six times that of teenage boys, both because they are more biologically vulnerable to infection and because older men often take advantage of young women's social and economic powerlessness. Equally alarming, the United States has the highest incidence of sexually transmitted diseases, STDs, in the industrialized world. 15.4 million Americans acquired a new STD in 1999 alone. Sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS, represent a women's health emergency. Biologically and socially, women are more vulnerable to STDs than men. Many STDs, again I say that is sexually transmitted diseases, are transmitted more easily from a man to a woman and are more likely to remain undetected in women, resulting in delayed diagnosis and treatment and more severe complications.”