Congress OKs $48 billion for global AIDS fight

Months of compromise
The final product took months of compromise: Democrats took out a provision in the existing act requiring that one-third of prevention funds be spent on abstinence education but allowed for reports to Congress if abstinence and fidelity spending falls below certain levels. Conservatives won "conscience clause" assurances that religious groups would not be forced to participate in programs to which they morally object.

Bush, who originally proposed doubling the program to $30 billion, first balked at but later accepted the $50 billion bill that passed the House in April. The Senate diverted $2 billion of the $50 billion to Indian programs and inserted a provision that more than half of funds for AIDS programs go for treatment and care.

The Senate also attached a measure, welcomed by AIDS advocacy groups, that ends a two-decade-old U.S. policy that has made it nearly impossible for HIV-positive people to get visas to this country as immigrants, students or tourists.

The bill is named after former House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairmen Henry Hyde, R-Ill., and Tom Lantos, D-Calif., who wrote the 2003 bill. Hyde died last November, and Lantos died in February as he was working on the new bill.

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