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Vendaval -> RE: "Bush official linked to call-girl probe" (4/29/2007 3:01:59 AM)
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General reply -
I am always amused at the fall out whenever a Madame is prosecuted for operating a House of
Ill Repute. Nothing like all the big wigs and grand-pooh-bahs running around trying to pull their
pants back up and jump out of windows.
And think about this quote in the article -
"More recently, Tobias told the network, he has been using a service with Central American women."
Wonder if he checks their paperwork to make sure they are legal and paying taxes?
There is also the irony that this bloke was the US Global AIDS Coordinator -
"On July 2, 2003, President Bush announced his intent to nominate Tobias to serve as the first United States Global AIDS Coordinator with the rank of Ambassador, reporting directly to the Secretary of State. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on October 3, 2003 and sworn in on October 6, 2003. Ambassador Tobias was responsible for launching the highly successful President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, and for directing all U.S. Government international HIV/AIDS assistance across the various agencies and departments of the United States Government that deliver it."
And -
"Among his honors, Ambassador Tobias was named Pharmaceutical Industry CEO of the Year by the Wall Street Transcript in 1995"
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/65376.htm
Which leads to a question about a conflict of interest as outlined here -
Press statement and letter to Senators on the Foreign Relations Committee
www.globaltreatmentaccess.org | www.healthgap.org
Health GAP
Global AIDS Alliance
Africa Action
Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE)
October 2, 2003
White House pick for global AIDS czar endorses disinformation campaign on global AIDS funding, abstinence policies
During Senate confirmation hearings yesterday, Randall Tobias, ex-Eli Lilly CEO and Pres. Bush's appointee for head of the U.S. Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, included in his testimony incorrect and misleading statements about the capacity of poor countries to absorb U.S. funding for AIDS treatment and prevention, according to AIDS activists. His confirmation is expected in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today.
"Tobias told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that according to his experts, money is 'not the problem' in confronting the AIDS crisis," said Asia Russell of Health GAP. "This is patently untrue. Annual spending on AIDS in poor countries needs to reach $10.5 billion by 2005 just to utilize poor countries' _existing infrastructure_ alone. U.S. underfunding of the fight against AIDS _is_ a major problem."
Today, total global spending on AIDS is only $4.7 billion. "While the Administration continues to hide behind the excuse of inadequate infrastructure," asserts Rusell, "it is undermining the Global Fund, the multilateral program with the capacity and legitimacy in place to save lives now."
The Global Fund needs $3 billion in 2004 to fund qualified proposals. Pres. Bush plans to give only 6.6% of the total to the Global Fund in 2004, or $200 million, although the U.S. comprises 33% of the world economy. Bush promised $1 billion for the Global Fund, as part of his $3 billion Global AIDS Act, signed into law in May. Bush has broken that promise, according to advocates. "The Administration plans to isolate and underfund multilateral efforts to combat the pandemic, even if they have to mislead the public in order to do it," said Salih Booker, Director, Africa Action.
Before his confirmation hearing, Tobias drew criticism because of his lack of experience in public health and because of potential conflict of interest as a corporate Pharma CEO. Eli Lilly is a member of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, PhRMA, a group lobbying the U.S. Government to seek greater intellectual property rights to protect monopolies on expensive medicines in the developing world and whose members are major Republican campaign donors.
"Trusting this position--with so many lives at stake--to someone with no public health experience is astonishing," said Dr. Paul Zeitz, Director, Global AIDS Alliance. "Tobias told the Committee he hoped to use his pharma background to 'get a better deal' on drug prices. Negotiations with brand-name companies have never been as effective as generic competition in reducing the prices of AIDS drugs. Will this be an initiative that favors corporate cronyism over best practice?"
Tobias also claimed, erroneously, that declines in the rate of HIV infections in Uganda are the result of campaigns focused primarily on abstinence. "Promotion of abstinence has been, at best, only one aspect of a much broader campaign to reduce HIV in Uganda," notes Jodi Jacobson, Executive Director of the Center for Health and Gender Equity, "One that has included frank talk about sex at all levels of public discourse and widespread promotion of effective condom use, among other strategies."
The Administration efforts, says Jacobson, "to portray Uganda's approach as a one-dimensional strategy serves a narrow ideological agenda, in which public health and scientific evidence are virtually irrelevant." The Bush Administration's plan to make abstinence-only strategies the core of its global prevention agenda "will unquestionably lead to a more illness and death," said Jacobson.
Amendments are expected to the White House Emergency Supplemental spending bill next week that would restore global AIDS funding to the original level promised by the President. Similar amendments have already been aggressively opposed by the White House, through Senate proxies including Bill Frist (R-TN).
Contacts:
Asia Russell, Health GAP: (267) 475-2645
Salih Booker, Africa Action: (202) 546-7961
Dr. Paul Zeitz, Global AIDS Alliance: (202) 365-6786
Jodi Jacobson, CHANGE: (301) 270-1182
ENDS
http://www.healthgap.org/press_releases/03/100203_HGAP_JNT_PS_Tobias_oppose.html
(format edit)
[Mod Note: image removed]
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