Action Alert: Tell Congress to Vote for Reformed and Expanded Global AIDS Programs Next week, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs will be voting on the reauthorization of the US global AIDS and health initiatives, a greatly improved and expanded version of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS (PEPFAR). The vote was postponed again due to the unfortunate death of human right advocate and the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Congressman Tom Lantos. Before his death on Feb. 11, Congressman Lantos fought hard to get the best bill possible introduced, and we can honor his legacy as a human rights champion by working to pass the bill.   Even if you’ve made calls already, do you have time to keep the pressure on Congress to make sure this legislation passes? Right wing extremists are geared up to defeat this bill. For the past week, they have been calling Members of Congress and demanding votes against the PEPFAR reauthorization bill, and making flat out false claims that the bill sabotages AIDS programs in Africa. Some Republican Members of Congress are taking this misinformation, and promising to introduce amendments that would strip all the new provisions and programs out of the bill. They are forcing a partisan vote on a program that has had bipartisan support since the beginning. The reality is that the PEPFAR reauthorization bill will save millions of lives by treating 3-4 million people with AIDS, and promoting HIV prevention programs grounded in science and evidence. Members of Congress need to hear from you that this bill must pass, as introduced, in order to save the most number of lives. The first step to making it law is to get the best bill possible through the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on Feb 27. Our best chance of passing the bill without these harmful party-line amendments is to make sure that all of the members of Congress who support us show up to vote -- and stay for the entire session! If several members who would have voted in favor of the bill don’t show up, then we’ll have a hard time defending all of the good things in the bill from attacks. Calls from our side have been coming into Congress for weeks now, and we’ve already seen progress. In spite of threatened attacks from Republicans, Committee staff are holding firm on their support of evidence-based prevention programs and sufficient funding to continue to increase access to treatment worldwide. Additionally, the current draft of the Bill includes language that would allow PEPFAR to purchase very inexpensive medication to treat infections that are common in people with compromised immune systems (opportunistic infections). This alone will allow PEPFAR to save hundreds of thousands of additional lives, and it was our phone calls that got that included in the Bill! Before Feb. 27th, can you make several calls to Democratic Members of Congress and encourage them to attend the committee hearing on Feb. 27th and stay for the whole time to vote in favor of the PEPFAR reauthorization bill, as introduced, including at least $50 billion over five years, allowing us to treat 1/3 of people with HIV in clinical need, train sufficient health workers to scale up treatment, and prevent infections with evidence-based approaches? Click here for a sample script and phone numbers Thank you for all of your hard work to pass the US Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008!