Why Tina Smith is trying to get Congress to do more to prevent -- not just treat -- HIV/AIDs
Though the COVID-19 pandemic has overtaken hospitals around the country as well as dominated the media, another decades-long epidemic has continued to exist despite access to medication that could completely eradicate it.
The HIV/AIDS epidemic, which took off in the U.S. in the early 1980s, is still very much a concern to doctors and public health officials, who say that federal funding is paramount to ending the illness.
Currently, there are federal programs that dole out money to states to help fund medication for those who already have HIV, but doctors and HIV/AIDS activists say that treating the disease after it’s already been contracted doesn’t do enough to stop its spread. Instead, they say there’s a need for federal funding for preventative medicine, which can be prohibitively expensive even for people with health insurance.
Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith, who has long been an advocate for better healthcare funding in the U.S., introduced a bill in December that would give HIV doctors and activists what they’ve long been asking for.
Read more: https://www.minnpost.com/health/2022/01/why-tina-smith-is-trying-to-get-congress-to-do-more-to-prevent-not-just-treat-hiv-aids/