WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), a senior member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, applauded Senate passage of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009. The bill includes a 4-year extension of the Ryan White Care Act, the largest federal program focused exclusively on HIV/AIDS care.

“I am so proud we have reauthorized the Ryan White Act. It is one of the most important pieces of legislation for people living with HIV/AIDS,” Senator Mikulski said. “I want everyone to remember where we were when we first passed the Ryan White Act in 1990. People living with AIDS were treated as pariahs. Look how far we’ve come and where we are now. You can count on me to continue fighting for people with HIV/AIDS in Maryland and around the world.”

First initiated in 1990, the Ryan White Care Act funds critical programs to provide people living with HIV/AIDS with access to health care, life-saving medication and essential support services. Maryland, which has one of the highest HIV and AIDS rates in the nation, receives more than $65 million in federal funding through the Ryan White Care Act to provide HIV and AIDS treatment and support services. Currently, more than 34,000 Marylanders are living with HIV/AIDS.

“I thank Ryan White and his family for all he and his family helped us endure and accomplish,” Senator Mikulski said.

The Senate’s version of the reauthorization bill now goes to the U.S. House of Representatives for approval, before being sent to the President for his signature.

Senator Mikulski’s floor statement in support of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009 follows:

“I stand today to applaud the Senate’s passage of the Ryan White Reauthorization Act. We all know the importance of this bill. We know we each could cite statistics from our own state. I have one of the largest states with surviving AIDS patients. Maryland is number five. But I want us to go back to that year of 1990 when we all gathered in this room.

“In 1990, the nation was hysterical over HIV/AIDS. It was a time of fear and frenzy. Our beloved Senator Kennedy chaired the HELP committee. He invited this little boy named Ryan White to speak.

“Ryan was only 13 years old. He was so frail, and sick, but filled with such verve and pluck. He wrenched our heart that day as he spoke about how, through getting a blood transfusion, he had contacted this new dreaded unknown and feared disease.

“Ryan talked about how he was isolated from his own classmates. How he was shunned. How he was treated like a pariah. How ugly words and epitaphs were thrown at him continually. And not just at him but at his mother, too, when people would drive by his house. Ryan poured his heart out to us that day.

“The entire committee - it didn’t matter which party or part of the country you were from - listened to that little boy. And during that time we remembered what it was. Firefighters afraid to touch people who were bleeding at the site. Funeral homes refusing to bury people who’d died of AIDS. There was the little Maryland girl who died of AIDS, and only one funeral home in all of Maryland would bury her. If you had HIV/AIDS, you were hated, you were vilified, you were treated as a pariah.

“But on that mesmerizing day, we were all gripped with the poignancy of that little boy’s story. As he got up to leave with his mother, the media went into frenzy. The frenzy carried on. Senator Kennedy jumped up and acted like that linebacker from Harvard in the old days and ran out.

“He said, ‘Come on Barbara, you get up. Chris {Dodd}, you come too.’ And we all ran out.

“Ted {Kennedy} literally threw himself in front of this little boy to protect him from the media. Putting his arm around him, calling out to us, ‘Chris you go over there, Barbara open that door.’

“Ted literally put himself in the line of that fear and frenzy, to get that little boy into a safe room, where we could have a chat with him. “I will never forget that day. When we talked with Ryan, and we asked him, ‘What can we do for you?’ He told us, ‘Please help the other kids.’ And we did. We moved the Ryan White bill against the grain of many people in this country.

“I wanted everyone to remember where we were, how far we have come, and where we are now. I’m so proud to stand with my colleagues today to celebrate the reauthorization of this life-saving bill.”