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Public health groups and conservatives have split over a two-year-old congressional mandate that denies overseas US AIDS funds to "any group or organization that does not have a policy explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking." Though the pledge was initially required of international recipients, it was extended to US-based groups this spring.

On May 18, more than 200 US groups wrote the White House to object that the anti-prostitution pledge is "undermining promising interventions" to fight AIDS. On August 4, dozens of conservative groups wrote Bush urging that political appointees in federal agencies scrutinize groups to ensure their "actual field practices" do not condone prostitution.

In a May 31 letter to President Bush and Andrew Natsios, head of USAID, which provides about half of federal overseas AIDS funding, Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Penn.) accused CARE and other aid groups of having a "solid record of anti-abstinence, pro-prostitution, and anti-American activities."

Editor's Note: from the Baltimore Sun