Haley Stevens: “I asked for and have obtained a copy of the transcript that was made at the background briefing provided for the…”

“I asked for and have obtained a copy of the transcript that was made at the background briefing provided for the President's speech in Africa. This was made by Dr. Joseph O'Neill, the President's director for AIDS policy. He was asked this question by the press: Can you clarify something about the money issue? You've talked about full funding, but no one has yet defined what full funding is. Is it the $2 billion that the President originally requested for next year? Or is it the $3 billion that was in the authorization bill? Or is it something else? Dr. O'Neill answered: Full funding and what we are going after is $15 billion over five years. Our request for this year, 2004, as you know, is $1.9 billion if you exclude the tuberculosis and malaria money. And I want to make a very clear point on this, because it's something where there has been continuing confusion. We have requested and will request $15 billion over five years. Now, in order to be effective with those dollars, we would be foolish to think we would spend the same amount every year. In order to do--particularly to do the treatment that is the cornerstone of this initiative--and I can say this because I'm a practicing physician myself, I still [see] HIV/AIDS patients, this is a very tough thing to do--in order to do that, we need to build a lot of infrastructure, we need to do a lot of training, particularly of health care workers.…”