World AIDS Day
Monday. 01 Dec, 2003
Today is December first, hence the winter theme which will last throughout the month. Today is also World Aids Day. Many people know the sad, sad, facts surrounding AIDS treatment in Africa, but here it comes again, nevertheless.
The US spends a lot of money to prevent AIDS from spreading in Africa. Unfortunately, the money isn't spent particularly well. What we've got is not a "War on AIDS", to use popular US-idioms, but rather a "War on Condoms"; the money is spent preaching abstinence instead of handing out condoms and teaching sex education.
Granted, "don't fuck" is the one and only 100% definitive solution to preventing AIDS from spreading, but you know, I know, everybody knows that's an advice which isn't going to be very well taken. And it isn't. The War on Condoms isn't stopping AIDS from spreading, it is actually accellerating it, since the funding of the effective methods have been cut off by the current US administration.
Not merely because nobody listens to the preaching of abstinence, but also because the US, or rather the Bush administration, are more interested in funding another war, the War on Abortion, rather than the War on AIDS.
The Bush administration does not fund any organisation which is pro-abortion, even if the funding is not directly funding work on abortion. This has already had a devastating effect on organisations working in family planning and HIV. International Planned Parenthood Federation has lost US$8 million, which is used mainly for contraceptive supplies. Christian Aid
Is this really the War on AIDS it's laid out to be? Or is it a proving ground for War on Condoms, War on Abortion and War of Ideology? If stopping AIDS really is important, why not do that? Why not stop AIDS now and fight the abortion and abstinence fight later?
The War on AIDS is not important. Far less important than the War on Condoms, at least. The Catholic Church is actually spreading lies and misinformation to not only stop aid organisations from handing out free condoms, but also the use of readily available ones, saying that "condoms have tiny holes in them through which the HIV virus can pass".
This propaganda has been so effective that in some regions of Africa the people there won't accept free condoms handed to them, some catholic priests have even been telling them that condoms are laced in the HIV virus.
Stopping the supply of condoms to organizations that counsel clients on all legal reproductive health options is leading inexorably to HIV's spread and a rise in unwanted pregnancies and abortions. Robyn E. Blumner, Times columnist
This brings us to the second part of the tragedy: intellectual property patents. There are really cheap and effective drugs available which reduces the risk of transmitting HIV/AIDS from an infected mother onto her child by a whopping 90 percent.
Bill Haddad works as a volunteer for a generic drug company based in India. His mission is to bring inexpensive medication to the third world. With him, he carries small bottles of a generic drug, called Neverapine, each bottle is worth 200 doses and costs less than forty cents to produce. He donates these to hospitals and physicians, but many countries won't let him.
"Because of alleged patent laws or other political barriers, I can't do it in most of the sub-Saharan countries and in half the Latin American countries," he says. "We produce the drugs legally, and the international law says we can do it. The companies have public statements that say, 'We won't prevent you.' But then, some piece of paper arrives and stops you. Third World Traveler
With so many wars at once; we have the War on Condoms, the War on Abortion, the War of Ideology and the War on Generic Drugs, the sad truth is that each of them takes precedence over the War on AIDS.
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