Political Quotes

“I came to Washington to the U.S. Senate in my heart to serve my home state of Tennessee and this great nation, but after arriving my steps have also taken me far from the floor of the United States Senate--on medical mission trips to Sudan, Africa, and most recently, in January, to Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania. The purpose of my trip just a few weeks ago was to learn, for myself, more about the human impact that a simple virus is having on the destruction of a continent. Not a family. Not a community. Not a state. Not a country. But an entire continent. The statistics behind this global plague are shocking: Each year, a staggering three million people die of AIDS. Someone dies from the disease every ten seconds. About twice that many, 5.5 million, or two every ten seconds, become infected. That's 15,000 a day. And what's even more tragic is that 6,000 of those infected each day are young--between ages 15 and 24. Globally, as many as 40 million are infected. Africa is hit particularly hard. Of those infected, 70% are in Africa. In Botswana alone, one out of every three individuals is infected. And the toll on families is incalculable. 13 million children have been orphaned by AIDS, mostly in Africa. Projections for the next ten years are sobering--the orphan population may well grow to 40 million--the number equivalent to all children living east of the Mississippi River here in the U.S. But Africa is not alone.…”