AIDS Conference in Bangkok…. ABC vs CNN (It’s not what you think!)
The International Labour Organization reports that HIV, the AIDS virus, is carried by about 36.5 million people of working age. That costs the world at least $25 billion (U.S.) a year in productivity. The U.N. agency also indicates that, without access to life-prolonging drugs, 28 million people will have died, or been lost to the labour force by 2005, and the toll could be 48 million by 2010.
Believing that putting condoms at the top of the list of interventions on the prevention side of the effort, encourages promiscuity,is the view of the Bush administration. They advocate abstinence (A) plus (B) being faithful and then (C) condoms. On the other side of the prevention debate in Bangkok, are the advocates of condoms (C) plus sterilized needles (N) and negotiating skills (N). Probably some health combination of both approaches is needed if the struggle against the pandemic is to be effective.
As UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan put it, “We have seen a terrifying pattern emerge; all over the world women are bearing the brunt of the epidemic. What is needed is real, positive change that will give more power and confidence to women and girls…what is needed is the education of girls. (Men must also change attitudes)…such as the belief that men who don’t show their wives who’s the boss at home are not real men, or that coming into manhood means having your sexual initiation with a sex worker when you are thirteen…” (from The Star, and Reuters News Agency, July 12, 2004)
(From the Associated Press, in The Globe and Mail, July 13, 2004)
Barbara Lee, the only member of the U.S. Congress to attend this meeting in Bangkok, is quoted as saying, “In an age where five million people are newly infected each year and women and girls too often do not have the choice to abstain, an abstinence-until-marriage program is not only irresponsible, it’s really inhumane.”
One of the really heinous aspects of the pandemic is that fewer than 1 in 10 who need the anti-retroviral drugs are getting them, and one of the main reasons for this is the U.S. insistence on brand name drugs, while the use of generic drugs, now being produced and offered for less than $200 a year, per patient, are proving effective and safe, according to the World Health Organization. Not incidentally, the Head of the U.S. Aids Initiative is a former pharmaceutical CEO, who naturally supports the administration’s “brand name” hypocrisy. And there is no doubt that generics work and are safe.
But there is still a ‘social stigma’ to the AIDS crisis and Annan spoke directly to that question: “We need leaders everywhere to demonstrate that speaking up about AIDS is a point of pride, not a source of shame. There must be no more sticking heads in the sand, no more embarrassment, no more hiding behind a veil of apathy.”
The crisis is spreading rapidly to India, China and in some European countries.
And the Canadian response, like that of most of the developed world is less than enough!
Little wonder that Stephen Lewis simply shakes his head in sadness, disappointment and angst when he sees how far behind the effort is, compared with where it could be.
Terrorism….weapons of mass destruction…..these subjects seem to top the list of reported world crises…while millions are dying, and their deaths are preventable. And the world sits silently and watches the devastation. What is wrong with this picture?
Current Edition:
AIDS Conference in Bangkok…. ABC vs CNN (It’s not what you think!)
(July 15, 2004)
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- What is Leadership?
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