STAND. COM. REP. NO. 368

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 50

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Colleen Hanabusa

President of the Senate

Twenty-Fourth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2007

State of Hawaii

 

Madam:

 

     Your Committees on Education and Health, to which was referred S.B. No. 50 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO AIDS RESEARCH,"

 

beg leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose of this measure is to appropriate funds for the Hawaii AIDS Clinical Research Program.

 

     The University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine, the Life Foundation, the Maui AIDS Foundation, The Center Hawaii, and twenty-four individuals submitted testimony in support of this measure.

 

     Your Committees find that the Hawaii AIDS Clinical Research Program of the University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine is a world-class organization whose mission is to develop clinical research capabilities to evaluate optimal therapies for HIV-1 infection and AIDS-associated complications; provide access to clinical research trials and studies for all HIV-1 patients in Hawaii; and to facilitate the transfer of research findings to clinical care that will ultimately improve the lives of patients with HIV-1 infection.

 

     The Hawaii AIDS Clinical Trials Unit is part of the Hawaii AIDS Clinical Research Program and provides basic infrastructure for the program.  The unit has been notified by the National Institutes of Health that it will no longer be funded.

 

     It is the Committees' intent to provide funding to ensure that the basic infrastructure of the entire Hawaii AIDS Clinical Research Program can remain viable and productive. 

 

     Your Committees have amended this measure by deleting the $1,200,000 appropriation to make it an unspecified sum of general funds to the University of Hawaii for the Hawaii AIDS Clinical Research Program.

 

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Education and Health that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 50, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 50, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Education and Health,

 

____________________________

DAVID Y. IGE, Chair

 

____________________________

NORMAN SAKAMOTO, Chair