Cochran: Child HIV/AIDS Treatment Program Protected in Senate Bill

Press Release

U.S. Senator Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) today confirmed that a Senate panel will protect a program used by the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) to treat children and women struggling with HIV/AIDS, rejecting President Obama's budget request to eliminate the program.

Cochran said the FY2015 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations bill approved by a Senate subcommittee does not include the administration's budget plan to eliminate a program within the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program that provides specialized care to women, infants, children and youth. Cochran previously had expressed his strong opposition to the proposal and asked that it not be included in the funding measure. (http://1.usa.gov/StcTCy)

"The administration's proposal would unnecessarily disrupt treatments for infants and mothers. The University of Mississippi Medical Center, in particular, has a very effective and successful program that would have been hurt by the budget proposal," said Cochran, who serves on the Senate Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee.

"I'm pleased that the Senate bill will allow the UMMC program to continue to compete for funding specifically for HIV/AIDS treatments for infants, children and their mothers. Our challenge now is to see that these programs are preserved as this legislation moves forward this year," he said.

The FY2015 spending bill for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services was approved at the subcommittee level on Tuesday and is now available for consideration by the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The President's FY2015 budget request recommended eliminating Part D of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, which provides specialized care to women, infants, children and youth, and merging those services with Part C--a program focused on adult HIV/AIDS treatments.

The position adopted by the Senate subcommittee is supported by Dr. Hannah Gay, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the University of Mississippi Medical Center's Blair E. Batson Hospital for Children in Jackson, who recently wrote Cochran in opposition of the budget plan.

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