Just over a year ago I spent a month in Tanzania working with the Catholic diocese on a HIV/AIDS education and prevention program. In Tanzania I got to witness the AIDS Pandemic first hand. It is a pandemic that is totally overwhelming health care resources. Our clinic could only afford $3 per patient per year, far short of the amount required to provide the antiretroviral treatment necessary to sustain someone's life. The global AIDS pandemic has become an enormous human tragedy. A tragedy which too many in America have failed to acknowledge for too long.

I want to thank you for the awareness and compassion you showed in your State of the Union speech tonight, by your highlighting the HIV/AIDS pandemic as one of great concern to the nation, and by your actions in announcing $15 billion over five years to fund an Emergency Plan for AIDS.

Thanking you for your compassion.