U.S. funds urged for global health

Dr. David Smith, chairman of the Haiti Christian Development Project in Little Rock, traveled to Washington last week to call for continued funding for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

A cardiologist and a palliative care physician, Smith is a deacon at the Pleasant Valley Church of Christ, according to the group’s website.

Smith, who met with U.S. Sen. John Boozman on Wednesday, was part of “a broad range of representatives from the faith community,” according to Melany Ethridge of A. Larry Ross Communications.

The global fund received $1.35 billion in federal funding for fiscal 2018.

The organization estimates that it has helped save more than 22 million lives since it was founded in 2002.

Also last week, six Arkansans visited Washington and lobbied for funding for cancer-prevention and treatment efforts.

According to the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the Arkansans included: Dr. Aime Franco, an associate professor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock; Jennifer Clack, an election coordinator in Jonesboro; Blake Pond, the chief of staff/special assistant to the director at the Myeloma Center at UAMS; Susan Rima, director of volunteer services at CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs; Travis Montgomery, the cancer network’s Arkansas grass-roots manager from Conway; and William Coulter, a Cancer Action Network national board member from Mountain Home.

The visitors met with Boozman, U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman and U.S. Rep. French Hill, according to network spokeswoman Adrienne Lynch. Information for this article was contributed by Noel Oman of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Planning to visit the nation’s capital? Know something happening in Washington, D.C.? Please contact Frank Lockwood at (202) 662-7690 or flockwood@arkansas online.com. Want the latest from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s

Washington bureau? It’s available on Twitter, @LockwoodFrank.