Today, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a speech at the National Institute of Health outlining her commitment to increasing funding for HIV/AIDS research that would “usher in an AIDS free generation,” as reported by ThinkProgress. During her speech, Clinton said that “creating an HIV-free population has never been a government priority until today.”

Personally, I think such a commitment has been a long time coming. While great strides have most definitely been made in treating those individuals living with HIV, greater measure need to be taken to make HIV as eradicated as polio and smallpox.

Apparently, Clinton agrees.

During her speech, she stated that “she envisioned a world in which virtually no children are born with the virus, face far lower risk of becoming infected, and have access to treatments that prevent the development of AIDS and reduce spreading the infection.”

Besides increasing funds for HIV/AIDS research, Clinton is also committed to what she dubbed “combination prevention” designed to decrease future HIV infections.

One of her goals is reducing “mother to child infection. . . to zero” and set the year 2015 as her target for achieving this feat. She also wants to enact “voluntary male circumcision,” which has been proven to “decrease male to female transmission by more than 60 percent.” Lastly, she wants to provide low cost treatment of “anti-retro viral drugs” to those living with the virus. Effectively treating those currently infected reduces transmission to a partner by “96 percent.”

Now, this is what politicians should be doing. They shouldn’t be messing with the private affairs of individuals such as marriage. They should be tackling problems that affect the nation, such as AIDS, education, health care, or employment, and come up with policy that is designed to make the nation stronger, not fracture it with hatred and prejudice.