Obama Proposes Less Money To Fight World's Top Infectious Killer

WASHINGTON -- Less than two months after unveiling a plan to fight multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, President Barack Obama has proposed cutting the U.S. Agency for International Development's funding to combat the world's No. 1 infectious killer -- by 19 percent. This will be the fourth budget in a row from the Obama administration that calls for a 19 percent cut to tuberculosis funding at USAID. In each of the previous years, Congress rejected that reduction. If lawmakers approve this week's funding proposal -- at $191 million, down from $236 million last year -- it would be the lowest level of spending on tuberculosis since fiscal year 2009.  Dr. Eric Goosby, the United Nations special envoy for tuberculosis, called it "astonishing" that Obama's fiscal year 2017 budget would "severely cut" tuberculosis funding. "To turn the [National Action Plan] into more than words on a page, resources are needed," he said in a statement Tuesday. The White House's National Action Plan for Combating Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis, released in late December, lays out a series of ambitious goals to fight the international spread of the deadliest forms of the disease. Those with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis have about a 50 percent cure rate. Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), a longtime advocate for tuberculosis funding and a member of the Tuberculosis Elimination Caucus, echoed Goosby's words. "If you don't have money with the plan, we can talk about pi...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news