Washington, D.C.--Congressman Eliot Engel announced the awarding of a $213,394 grant for Montefiore Medical Center to conduct an anti-smoking program for people living with AIDS who still use tobacco.

Rep. Engel said, “There is an epidemic of cigarette smoking among an aging population of persons living with HIV, which, with the associated co-morbidities of that disease, represents an emerging public health crisis.”

The 11-term congressman, a senior member of the Health Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said that people with AIDS who are smokers have few smoking cessation resources available to them that are tailored to their needs. The grant will begin to assess these critical needs by building an evidence-based approach to achieving abstinence.

The grant was made by the National Institutes of Health and funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act through the Department of Health and Human Services.