White House Awarded AIDS Grant to Group Despite Negative Appraisal
The Bush administration's global AIDS program last fall awarded a grant to promote abstinence in African youth to a politically connected Washington advocacy group, even though the expert committee reviewing requests for government money judged the request "not suitable for funding." The decision by the committee was overruled by the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), a key agency implementing the five-year, $15 billion Bush AIDS plan. On Nov. 1, the administration's global AIDS office approved a grant for an unspecified amount of money to the Children's AIDS Fund. The existence of the award was revealed yesterday in a letter by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) to Randall L. Tobias, head of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which is run out of the State Department. Waxman is seeking details of the Children's AIDS Fund's grant application, why expert reviewers rejected it and why the decision was overruled by Andrew S. Natsios, USAID's head. The Children's AIDS Fund, which has an office in Sterling and a post office box in Washington, is an 18-year-old AIDS service organization that has become a leading proponent of abstinence-based AIDS prevention. The organization is headed by Anita M. Smith, a writer and researcher whose views on strategies for reducing risky behavior by teenagers were promoted by President Bush during his tenure as Texas governor. In 2002, she was named to the President's Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS, and last December was appointed co-chairman. [more]