House Reps Launch Bipartisan HIV Caucus

House members on both sides of the aisle have launched an HIV/AIDS caucus with a stated mission of protecting funding for programs in the United States and abroad.

The caucus is led by Republican representative Trent Franks of Arizona and Democratic representatives Barbara Lee of California and Jim McDermott of Washington. Three additional GOP members joined the caucus Thursday.

"It makes a huge difference to have Republicans on board, and I'm really excited about that," McDermott told The Huffington Post. "As a physician, I traveled in Africa in '87 to '88, and I saw the disease firsthand, and what it was doing. But when I came to Congress [in 1989], no one was talking about this, and it was a gay man's disease as far as anyone was concerned. I started a task force in Congress to address it in 1992, but it was tough to get people interested, and until today we didn't have anyone on the other side." (Read the HuffPo report here.)