The US is damned if they do!

[CCTAU 3,335]

We are giving over 15 billion to the world to fight AIDS, but apparently we are not doing enough or the doing it the way the UN wants it done. Of course it comes with strings, everything free in this life does. With the exception of only one gift.

That 15 billion could go to the deficit.

And abstinence DOES work. No sex, no sexually transmitted disease. The UN wants people to have their fun at our expense. Kofi needs to go. The UN needs to go. They are sustained only by our strength as a nation. If we start a new group, the UN will fall quickly. They are built on sand.

U.S. Defends AIDS Policy Amid Criticism

2 hours, 29 minutes ago  Add Top Stories - AP to My Yahoo!

By VIJAY JOSHI, Associated Press Writer

BANGKOK, Thailand - The United States on Wednesday urged its detractors to end their bickering over condoms and drug patents and join hands with Washington in a global partnership to fight their common enemy: AIDS (news - web sites).

 

Defending the Bush administration's policy from intense criticism, U.S. AIDS coordinator Randall Tobias said that the United States is spending nearly twice as much to fight global AIDS as the rest of the world's donor governments combined.

"At this point, perhaps the most critical mistake we can make is to allow this pandemic to divide us," Tobias said in a speech to the International AIDS Conference.

"We are striving toward the same goal a world free of HIV (news - web sites)/AIDS. When 8,000 lives are lost to AIDS every day, division is a luxury we cannot afford," he said.

The United States has come under fire this week at the six-day conference over its AIDS policies, with activists, scientists and governments finding fault with nearly every Washington policy on HIV.

Its insistent on abstinence as a first line of defense against HIV has been ridiculed as unworkable by proponents of condoms. Tobias said while the United States is not against condoms, an abstinence campaign in Uganda shows that the contraceptives are not the only solution.

"Abstinence works, being faithful works, condoms work. Each has its place," he said.

"He's lying, people dying," hecklers chanted in near-constant heckling during the speech, which was initially delayed a few minutes when protesters massed near the stage.

President Bush (news - web sites) has pledged $15 billion over five years to combat AIDS in Vietnam and 14 countries in Africa and the Caribbean.

"By its actions, the United States has challenged the rest of the world to take action. Please join with us in our deepened commitment to the global fight against HIV/AIDS," he said.

Critics say the money comes with strings attached — it goes to countries that support its abstinence-first policy. Also, the money currently can only buy brand-name drugs, usually American, shutting out cheaper generic medicines made by developing countries.

A U.N.-launched Global Fund allows generic drugs, costing as little as $150 per person per year, while those approved under the U.S. plan typically cost $700, said Joia Mukherjee, medical director of Partners in Health, which helps treat poor people in Haiti.

"The last thing I want to worry about is which bottle this stuff is coming out of," she told The Associated Press.

She said U.S. administrators in Haiti quietly advise groups to use as much Global Fund money as they can on cheap drugs and, whenever possible, save U.S. money for health workers.

Tobias said Washington insists on name-brand drugs because their quality has tested by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites), which so far has endorsed only branded drugs. However, the agency has indicated it would accelerate any applications for generic drugs.

"America will not have one health standard for her own citizens and a lower standard of 'good enough' for those suffering elsewhere," he said.

An estimated 38 million people are infected with HIV, mostly in poor countries: 25 million in sub-Saharan Africa and 7.2 million in Asia. Only about 7 percent of the 6 million people in poor countries who need antiretroviral treatment are getting it.

 

Since the last AIDS conference in Barcelona in 2002, the number of people being treated for the disease has doubled in the developing world to 440,000. At the same time, 6 million people died from the virus and 10 million people became infected, WHO figures show.

Wednesday's agenda featured sessions addressing the growing infection rate among youth and women.

Experts say nearly half of all people living with HIV now are women, and their infection rates in many regions are climbing much faster than men's.

Raoul Fransen, infected during his youth in the Netherlands, told a plenary session that learning he was HIV positive made him think he would never again have sex again, for fear of infecting others.

"It took a while before I was ready to experience intimacy again," he said.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites), who joined the French delegation and other skeptics this week in criticizing the United States, urged Washington to show the same leadership in fighting AIDS as it has in fighting terrorism.

"We hear a lot about weapons of mass destruction, we hear a lot about terrorism. And we are worried about weapons of mass destruction because of the potential to kill thousands. Here we have an epidemic that is killing millions. What is the response?" Annan said in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. in Bangkok.

French officials said the United States was trying to bully developing countries during negotiations on free trade agreements to give up rights granted by the World Trade Organization (news - web sites) to produce generic drugs. U.S. officials reject this claim.

AIDS

[tiger88 934]

Why is the best way to solve a problem always to throw money at it?

[BamaGrad03 0]

Because medicine, condoms, and awareness costs money.

[Jenny AU-92 0]

Why does any negative comment about abstinence ALWAYS invoke religion and religious values? Even atheists can practice abstinence - you don't have to recite some prayer or anything to make it work. And bottom line - no matter what your beliefs, it is hard to deny that it is the ONLY way to 100% prevent pregnancy and disease for people of ANY sexual persuasion!!!

Personally, I am in agreement with the whole condom thing - spread them around liberally to prevent the spread of liberals (haha, couldn't resist the play on words) - but I also believe that teaching abstinence is not a bad thing either. Many girls I knew in high school would have benefitted from some suggestions on how to say "No" to pressure for sex. It is NOT easy to say no to a guy you think you love, and when you are a teen girl, the social pressures are strong and the self-esteem and self-confidence are often weak. When you are some little freshman cheerleader and the big stud QB has you in the back seat of his car, it can be VERY hard to back off!! (Not personal experience, but I knew the girl - and come Monday morning, everyone in school knew about it too!). You can say "No" without turning it into a religious debate or using only Bible verses as justification. In most cases, it just makes sense.

[Tigermike 3,041]

Uganda Winning the Battle Against AIDS — Using Abstinence    SARAH TRAFFORD

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Uganda may be on its way to wiping out AIDS by using the Biblical values of chastity and fidelity, a new Harvard University study finds. According to the study, abstinence education has shown significant effectiveness in reducing AIDS in Uganda, with the HIV infection rate dropping 50 percent between the years 1992 and 2000. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The east African nation is making a big impact with the revelation that the AIDS epidemic can be curbed. Riddled with HIV infections since the 1970s, Uganda has found miraculous success by using abstinence as its prevention strategy. Promotion of abstinence through billboards, radio programs and school sex education curricula has resulted in a slow and steady drop in HIV infection rates, as well as new attitudes about conquering AIDS in Uganda.

"Uganda is one of the countries that attach great importance on promoting abstinence among our youth," said Ahmed Ssenyomo, minister counselor at the Ugandan Embassy, in a speech to the African American Youth Conference on Abstinence.

When the program started in the late 1980s, the number of pregnant women infected with HIV was 21.2 percent. By 2001, the number was 6.2 percent. The Harvard study also reported Ugandan adults are not having as much risky sex: of women 15 and older, those reporting many sexual partners dropped from 18.4 percent in 1989 to 2.5 percent in 2000.

The emphasis on abstinence in Uganda’s program is unique. In other nations with high HIV infections, such as Zimbabwe and Botswana, condoms have been promoted as the answer to ending the AIDS crisis. In Botswana, 38 percent of pregnant women were HIV positive last year, contrasted with 6.2 percent of Ugandan women.

Much of the program’s success is due to the nation’s willingness to look beyond the sexual revolution to the past.

"What we’re seeing in parts of Africa is communities responding to the epidemic by saying, ‘Let’s see what’s in our culture — how can we deal with this with what we had in the past?’ " Susan Leclerc-Madlalas, a medical anthropologist at the University of Natal in South Africa, told the Associated Press. "What they had most of the time was a way of regulating sexuality."

Many AIDS officials reject abstinence as a potential prevention strategy despite evidence that promotion of abstinence and fidelity have significantly reduced AIDS cases in Uganda over the past decade.

"Millions and millions of young people are having sexual relations," said Paolo Teizeria, director of Brazil’s AIDS program, at the 14th International AIDS Conference. "We cannot talk about abstinence. It’s not real."

Abstinence is often dismissed as a potential prevention method. Condom promotion and "safe-sex" initiatives have long been thought to be the answer to stopping the spread of HIV: Instead of encouraging people to curb their libidos, these initiatives have tried to provide "safer" ways of exercising them. However, in many African nations condoms aren’t looked upon kindly: there are a variety of urban legends that circulate in some regions that condoms are either ethnic cleansing tools or actually spread HIV themselves. (During the Cold War, the Soviet KGB spread "disinformation" that the United States created the AIDS virus to kill off Africans.)

"Ugandans really never took to condoms," Dr. Vinand Nantulya, an infectious disease advisor to Ugandan leader Yoweri Museveni, told The New Republic.

The abstinence initiative in Uganda goes far beyond those who are already having sex — it starts with the education and promotion of an abstinence program for youth called "True Love Waits." Thirty thousand Ugandan youth are currently involved with the program. Launched in Uganda in 1994, True Love Waits focuses on abstinence until marriage as a way to prevent all sorts of adverse consequences associated with extra-marital sexual activity.

"Encouraging marriage, monogamy or abstinence, delaying the onset of sexual activity, discouraging promiscuity and casual sex, reducing the supply and demand of illegal drugs or providing treatment to drug addicts … are the absolute most effective approaches to reducing the risk of HIV," Rep. Mark Souder (R-Indiana) and six other members of the U.S. Committee on Government Reform said in a letter to the United Nations.

The United States and other countries have yet to embrace abstinence promotion as a mode of AIDS prevention. The United Nations recently predicted that AIDS will wipe out half the population in some African countries. In Uganda, the proverbial sun is starting to shine from the rain cloud of AIDS deaths — and it’s looking brighter.

LINK

In Southern Africa, teen abstinence is 'cool'

A program helps curb AIDS in Zambia, where 20 percent are diagnosed as HIV positive.

LINK

[Jenny AU-92 0]

Gee - have sex and die.... Don't have sex and live... Hmmm.....