Religious Fanaticism Increases The Spread Of AIDS
From a NY Times op-ed reprinted in the IHT, how the 'nutters in our government are unnecessarily contributing to a world public health crisis:
The elevation of ideology over both science and local needs is deadly in this case. A report by the Government Accountability Office finds that efforts to stem the AIDS pandemic are being undermined by the insistence of Republican congressional leaders and the administration that an unduly large portion of the funds be used to emphasize sexual abstinence and fidelity. The GAO's assessment should weigh heavily on the president's conscience, and inspire a change of policy.Apart from ignoring human nature, the stress on abstinence largely ignores the situation in countries like India or Russia, which have exploding HIV and AIDS problems stemming largely from the intravenous use of illegal drugs and prostitution. The administration has added rules that effectively raise the spending for abstinence-only programs in some countries to well over 33 percent. The result is that some countries have had to cut spending on effective prevention strategies, including programs to prevent the transmission of HIV from infected mothers to their newborn infants. That is indefensible.
This dovetails with a Philly Inquirer story by Dawn Fallik about how the CDC allowed a congressman to meddle in researchers choices for a CDC panel on sexually transmittted diseases, bypassing the scientific approval process. The money quote is here:
"We've spent $1.2 billion over a 25-year period on abstinence-only programs. Shouldn't we have one study that shows that they work?" asked William Smith, director for public policy for the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States. He is no longer on the panel.
Nice to see that adscam crosses international lines.Pay - o - la, we love Pay - o - la
opit at May 14, 2006 1:49 PM
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