GOOD USE OF MONEY

Our position: A proposal to increase funding to fight Hepatitis C deserves
a congressional OK.

More than one in a hundred Americans has Hepatitis C, yet funding is
embarrassingly low for fighting the disease that will eventually kill more
people than AIDS.

It is estimated that the disease, which destroys the liver, has infected 4
million Americans and hundreds of millions more around the globe. Most of
them don't even know they have the disease.

About 60 percent got it from using contaminated needles, yet a half-
million Americans were unlucky enough to get it from tainted transfusions
before doctors began screening the blood supply.

Yet in 2003, federal spending on education, research and prevention of the
disease totaled just $23 million. A proposal in Congress increases that to
$90 million. Even in a tight budget year, that's reasonable. Not acting
will cost a lot more down the road.