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How A Rock Star, A Physician-Legislator, And An Evangelical Senator Bonded To Help End The Global AIDS Pandemic: A Backstory (Forbes)
Dec 1FORBES | In 1998 before I was Senate Majority Leader, and before Bono’s name became synonymous with addressing the AIDS pandemic and the RED campaign, he visited my Senate office to lobby me, and then collaborate with me, on the Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) initiative to provide debt relief to the world’s poorest nations,…
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Trump’s call to end HIV is a worthy mission both at home and abroad (CNN)
Feb 15CNN | In his State of the Union address, President Donald Trump brought attention to a disease that has almost disappeared from the headlines: HIV/AIDS. He pledged to end the epidemic in the United States by 2030, setting commendable, ambitious goals for domestic prevention and treatment efforts. I support President Trump’s pledged investment in domestic…
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What Andy Samberg And Sandra Oh Got Right At The Golden Globes: Vaccines Are Worth Celebrating! (Forbes)
Jan 16FORBES | Last week at the Golden Globes, hosts Andy Samberg and Sandra Oh made headlines as they tried to give out free flu shots to celebrities in the audience. This surprise stunt showed famous stars looking shocked and nervous as needle-wielding nurses descended from the stage to offer vaccinations. Samberg joked, “If you are an…
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15 Years Later: How Well Are We Doing Addressing AIDS (Forbes)
Dec 1FORBES | This World AIDS Day, we celebrate the astounding progress made in the past 15 years! Thanks to PEPFAR— the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief—14.6 million people living with HIV (59%) have access to antiretroviral therapy. More than 2.4 million babies have been born HIV-free. Countless lives have been saved. This progress…
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Make water a top global priority. It’s the best, cheapest way to save lives (USA Today)
Aug 15USA TODAY | This summer has seen the unprecedented and simultaneous outbreak of six of eight diseases posing the greatest threats to public health, according to the World Health Organization. You’d think that after the alarmingly fast spread of Ebola in West Africa just a few years ago, we’d have learned our lesson. Instead, the…
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Medicine As Currency For Peace: How Global Health Funding Could Change The World (Forbes)
May 3Forbes | I first met the virus as a young surgical resident in training. I read the initial 1981 report of five people in California who died of a mysterious, unnamed disease. The virus outsmarted and outran us. The first year, we watched helplessly as a few hundred people died. The next year, a few thousand,…
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To Whom Much is Given, Much is Expected: Why U.S. Should Lead on Global Health (TEDMED)
Apr 12TEDMED | A life-changing story has been missed by the media and the general public. But it will be highlighted in the history books in future generations. The story is that for less than 1% of our federal budget, the United States since 1990 has led the world in reducing by half those living in…
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Notes from the Road: Africa 2018
Jan 31It’s been many years since my first trip to Africa, but each trip changes me. I already know this trip will be no different. Tracy and I are here for two-weeks this time: Tanzania, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Kenya. The trip will bring together work from Hope Through Healing Hands (global community health) and The Nature…
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World AIDS Day — let’s work with urgency to battle this disease (The Hill)
Dec 1THE HILL | The U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is one of the most successful humanitarian relief efforts ever undertaken. It is directed at one of the world’s most daunting public health problems. AIDS strikes people in the prime of their lives, shatters families and communities, orphans children, and threatens the ability of…
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Reconsider severe international affairs budget cuts (The Tennessean)
Mar 15TENNESSEAN | While music, faith, health care, and even hot chicken have made Nashville famous, we also have a robust hub of research, work, and advocacy for global health and development. Thanks to the dozens of humanitarian organizations providing excellent services for vulnerable populations worldwide, Vanderbilt’s Institute for Global Health research and development, and the missions…
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Bill Frist: Foreign Aid Saves Lives—And Makes America Safer (Christianity Today)
Mar 6CHRISTIANITY TODAY | For the past two decades, we have had a front-row seat in the bipartisan movement to end worldwide preventable, treatable diseases like AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, and to make poverty history. Since 1990, the world has cut in half maternal and child deaths, infectious diseases, and poverty as well as turned the…
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The Case for Keeping America’s AIDS Relief Plan (New York Times)
Feb 9NEW YORK TIMES | Among global public health advocates, there is a growing concern that President Trump may cut back, or even eliminate, programs that have played a critical role in fighting diseases worldwide. While every administration should strongly review our nation’s overseas commitments, and there are undoubtedly programs that we should cut, I hope…
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My Turn: Around the world, Ayotte is a force for good (Concord Monitor)
Nov 2CONCORD MONITOR | Since entering the U.S. Senate in 2011, Sen. Kelly Ayotte has emerged as a leading voice on U.S. national security and foreign policy. Through her service on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Ayotte has established herself as a strong defense hawk, consistently leading efforts to protect national security spending and to call…
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Global Health: The Most Effective Policy
Feb 29As the 2016 primaries unfold, it’s time for candidates of both parties to focus on expanding the big-hearted policies that have made this nation so exceptional. In recent years, the most effective of those policies has been global health — that is, putting U.S. resources to work saving lives in developing nations by spreading health treatments…
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Health Diplomacy in Latin America
Feb 3Strategic Health Diplomacy (SHD) recognizes that targeted global health initiatives can be an important foreign policy tool for the United States. Healthier populations are productive, safe, and less vulnerable to instability. By addressing global health in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), the United States can save lives and improve its national strategic interests. Read…
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Our Opportunity Where Health and National Security Converge (Forbes)
Nov 13FORBES | This week, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and I released a report recommending a policy of strategic health diplomacy, inspired and informed by the success of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). The report’s publication was announced at a conference in Washington, DC, where many of the architects of PEPFAR came together to advocate…
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Retreating From Global Leadership Puts America at Risk
Nov 11The 2016 presidential campaign is well under way, and the candidates are already jousting over who is best suited to respond to an increasing number of obstacles abroad, ranging from the refugees crisis in Europe and the Middle East, to the threat of ISIS, to Russian aggression under President Vladimir Putin. As Democrats and Republicans,…
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What PEPFAR’s Numbers Mean for National Security
Nov 9As of last year, PEPFAR supported anti-retroviral treatment for 7.7 million people, mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa, and an astounding 95 percent of at-risk babies were born HIV-free. In 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the one-millionth baby had been born HIV-free because of PEPFAR-supported prevention of mother-to-child transmission. No nation in history has been…
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Water for the World
Dec 22Back in 2003 I was traveling in Mozambique with a delegation of Senate colleagues to take a closer look at U.S. policy on HIV/AIDS. We found an HIV emergency, but we also identified a health need even more fundamental: access to clean water. That was the trip that prompted PEPFAR, President George Bush’s unprecedented commitment to address…
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What a Difference a Decade Makes
May 28(The Hill, May 28, 2013) By Rep. Barbara Lee and Bill Frist A Democratic Congresswoman and a former Republican Senator aren’t afforded many opportunities to work together. Especially at a time of fiscal crisis when every dollar is scrutinized and fought over, partisanship pushes us into opposite corners. But we agree on a program that…
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A Crucial Moment for Global Nutrition
May 22(The Hill, May 22, 2013) On June 8, the United Kingdom, under the leadership of Prime Minister David Cameron, will host “Nutrition for Growth,” a high-level meeting where donor governments, including our own, will pledge funding and other commitments to address undernutrition and its devastating impact on the long-term health and productivity of millions of…
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We Must Continue Our Legacy of Saving Lives
Mar 7(Roll Call, March 7, 2013) Now is no time to shy away from our health investments By Bill Frist A decade ago, as I was beginning my time as Senate majority leader, bipartisan consensus in Washington helped launch a new era of progress in global health just when it was sorely needed. Twenty years had…
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Is AIDS the last bipartisan issue?
Jul 31(The Week, July 31) These days, Washington can’t agree on anything. Thankfully, though, some brave lawmakers are still willing to cross the aisle to fight a deadly disease. We live in fiercely contentious times. Every day, it seems, a new issue arises that Democrats and Republicans cannot agree on. Health care, taxes, energy, favorite flavor…
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5 reasons deficit hawks should lay off global health initiatives
Apr 24(The Week, April 24, 2012) By Bill Frist, M.D. America’s national debt is ballooning at a worryingly rapid pace. But some programs ought to be spared the chopping block. Government spending is about to get chopped — no matter who wins the next presidential election. President Obama and his GOP challenger Mitt Romney have both…
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Refugees International Gala
Dec 805.07.10 This past evening, I attended to the 31st Annual Refugees International Gala at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium with many former Senate colleagues and advocates for those displaced by crisis or conflict. At the gala, I was honored to receive the McCall-Pierpaoli Humanitarian Award, which was named in the honor and memory of Penny…
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Medicine as a Currency for Peace Through Global Health Diplomacy
Sep 30The twenty-first century has seen the rise of a new nexus, one that generates a remarkable opportunity for medicine and health to serve as a powerful currency for peace. Two trends define this nexus. The first is globalization and all the interconnections this phenomenon has produced among populations previously isolated from one another in almost…
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Leading the Fight Against Global HIV/AIDS
May 14The following is text of remarks delivered on the Senate floor. May 14, 2003 – Senate Floor Remarks Mr. President, the size of HIV is about 100 nanometers. That is tiny, microscopic, and invisible to the naked eye. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. If you divide 3 feet, into 1 billion parts, and…
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May 2003 Senate Floor Remarks on HIV/AIDS
May 13The following is text of remarks delivered on the Senate floor. May 13, 2003 – Senate Floor Remarks Mr. President, the sequence we just walked through is very important. The sense of urgency for the HIV/AIDS legislation, for me, really boils down to the fact that every 10 seconds somebody is dying from this little…
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January 2003 Senate Floor Remarks on HIV/AIDS
Jan 30The following is text of remarks delivered on the Senate floor. Jan. 30, 2003 – Senate Floor Remarks Mr. President, for a few moments before closing tonight–and we have had a very productive day and we will make the more formal announcements in about 15 minutes or so–I take a few moments addressing an issue…
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