I am a member of the San Jose RESULTS group, and I have a deep personal commitment to the relief of poverty throughout the world. I have taken a particular interest in public health, and especially the AIDS pandemic. I have spent time as a volunteer working in Tanzania, attempting to help combat the the pandemic. In Arusha, the town where I worked, one in every seven people was HIV positive, decades of progress were being reversed by AIDS, and a generation of orphans was being created. Last year, I was one of several people who met with John Ormsby in your San Francisco office in to discuss our concerns regarding the global AIDS pandemic.

I am writing today to express my appreciation of your having been a cosponsor of SA 127 introduced by Senator Durbin to the 2003 Omnibus Appropriations bill. As you know, SA 127 provides an additional $180 million in funding for global public health in FY03, including $100 million directed specifically for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria.

While being a long way from the amount of funding needed to properly address the AIDS pandemic, SA 127 does provide a sense of hope that the United States is finally beginning to address what Secretary of State Colin Powell has described as "a catastrophe worse than terrorism", and "the biggest problem we have on the face of the earth today".

Thanking you for your ongoing commitment to global public health, both in terms of helping address the AIDS pandemic and the leadership you have consistently shown on tuberculosis.