In the last article, I wrote about an announcement made at the 2019 State of the Union speech on a plan to end the HIV epidemic in the US. I was experiencing De Ja Vu. Something very similar had happened before, but far more serious and consequential.
In the 2003 State of the Union, President George W. Bush announced the creation of the PEPFAR program, a global initiative to assist developing countries with very limited resources gain access to HIV treatment. PEPFAR is the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief. So let’s put things in context.
On the eve of declaring war against Iraq with bogus justification, their administration perhaps felt there needed to be some kind of humanitarian initiative to balance things out. The Iraq war was an absolute nightmare (which many of us predicted) and we have paid dearly for it. While I have no fondness for the Bush administration, I have to give credit where it is due.
Whether or not the Bush Administration had an ulterior motive, the PEPFAR program helped