Russ Feingold: “I rise in the support of Senator Durbin and Senator DeWine's amendment to increase U.S. support for the fight against…”

“I rise in the support of Senator Durbin and Senator DeWine's amendment to increase U.S. support for the fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic. As a 10-year member of the Senate Subcommittee on African Affairs--and over half of those years have been as either the ranking minority member or the chairman--I have seen the terrible unfolding of the pandemic. I have read and repeated the numbing statistics that grow more horrifying every year. In 2002 alone, 3.1 million people died of AIDS. Five million were infected with HIV over the course of the year, and 42 million people were living with the virus by the end of the year. Ten million children have been orphaned by AIDS, and that number is expected to quadruple in the next 10 years. And I have seen the reality of these statistics in individual faces; I have met with orphans, with the sick, with the dying, and with the mourning. And while most of my own experience with this disaster has been in the African context, this is not only an African problem. In India, China, Russia, and the countries of the Caribbean, the terrible statistics have begun their own march steadily upward as the pandemic is taking hold. The devastation is all the more appalling each year not just because the numbers grow, but because each year we have more tools at our disposal to fight this catastrophe.”