Thursday, November 21, 2013

Funding of PEPFAR and Replenishment of Global Fund to Fight Aid TB and Malaria (GFATM) – Over the past several days there has been considerable activity about the issue facing the funding of PEPFAR for 2015. The activists are pushing to have 12 million people on therapy by 2016. The global goal is 15 million people on therapy by 2015. The Obama administration will not give additional funding for PEPFAR that would allow them to reasonably achieve the goal of 12 million people on therapy by 2016. Therefore, the State Department and the people at PEPFAR are struggling with how to message something that would be disappointing when you look at the numbers. I've had pre-calls with Deborah VonZinkernagel and today (Nov. 21, 2013) we had a call with three people from the State Department – Daniella Ballou- Aares, Lorrie McHugh-Wytkind, Eric Goosby and Deborah. I was up in NYC for the day to appear on an Atlantic Magazine-sponsored panel and Webinar on a similar subject: “Talk is Cheap: Saving Lives, Ending AIDS and Putting Our Money Where Our Mouth Is”. As an aside, other participants in that Atlantic Magazine panel where Peter Staley, Nancy Mahon (MAC Cosmetics), Jeffrey Sachs (Columbia), Phill Wilson (Black AIDS Institute), Luis Loures (UNAIDS). Stephen Lewis (AIDS-Free World), Wafaa El-Sadr, Danny Resnic (Origami Condoms) and Deborah Persaud (Hopkins). The Session was a big hit. Back to the telephone conversation with PEPFAR and State. I made the strong suggestion that the PEPFAR people and the Department of State bite the bullet and tell the truth about what they can and cannot do. One of the problems is that if they stick by the promised numbers without the resources to achieve those numbers it will turn out that they will overpromise something that they cannot deliver on. Note the similarity to the roll-out of the Affordable Care Act – a true mess-up). I warned them as to the danger of this. They should suggest to the White House that they assume a leadership role in getting the entire global community to increase their support of the treatment goals. We cannot get to that goal ourselves since we do not have the resources. I feel that it would be appropriate for us to put more resources in. However, OMB refuses to put any more than just about $150 million more into the 2015 PEPFAR budget. The phone call went well and I hope that they take my advice. More to come. Announcement was made today that David Ho and I have won the Prince Mahidol Award from Thailand. We will receive it for medical research and Peter Piot and Jim Kim will receive it for Public Health. Ceremony will take place in Bangkok on January 28, 2014