ASA supports increased use of soy protein in treatment of HIV/AIDS, including in U.S. government and private sector foreign food assistance programs.

President Bush announced a five-year $15 billion HIV/AIDS Initiative in 2002, a comprehensive strategy to address the epidemic in developing countries. The resources are channeled through the Global Coordinator’s Office at the State Department, USAID, HHS, and the Global Fund for infectious diseases to conduct specific projects. The bulk of the money will go to medicinal therapy programs, under which U.S. government agencies, private sector, NGOs, and foreign governments and organizations will provide antiretroviral drugs to 3 million people.

Although the Initiative recognizes the importance of food and nutrition to a successful drug therapy, it does not allocate money for nutritional programs. The NGO community, supported by the agriculture industry, insists that "food therapy" should be the primary means of increasing productivity, prolonging life, and decreasing malnutrition. Various organizations are working to create a nutrition program as a complement to the drug therapy under the Initiative, and are seeking resources that would fund feeding programs in severely AIDS affected countries.

ASA is working with the private sector, NGOS and the World Food Program to explore various avenues of delivering soy protein to those affected by HIV. This approach would use through the Corporate Council on Africa (CCA)’s HIV/AIDS taskforce to create soy feeding programs and provide technical assistance on nutritional feeding in plants, factories, clinics, and other entities owned by members of CCA. CCA incorporates food processors, pharmaceutical companies, and manufacturing companies with facilities in Africa.

Another effort would use the AGRI-PVO Coalition, which is approaching USAID to create a nutritional feeding program that will target people affected with HIV/AIDS. ASA will develop proposals with PVOs that will provide soy protein to people affected with HIV/AIDS. The Coalition is planning to work with USAID to allocate a portion of non-emergency food aid to feeding projects FOR those affected by HIV/AIDS.