Interesting Blog about the rise of fundamentalism in Iraq

[Fred]

The Percentage of GDP is a misnomer, a lot of the money is private aid (since we have a low tax rate) and the IMF.

Regardless, the 15 billion wether it goes to an international organization or a new American one, is still 15 billion dollars meant to fight AIDS.

Ergo they are not cutting the fundamental bottom line, just changing the outlet. Which is fine, and lives have not been shown to have been lost b/c of it.

The biggest problem in Africa isn't education, its availability of drug cocktails. Look at the data in western countries from the last 20 years. A chart of education spending has little correlation with the spread of Aids. Medicine on the other hand, lengthens the HIV to AID transition time and has had a serious impact.

 

[zurich]

The Percentage of GDP is a misnomer, a lot of the money is private aid (since we have a low tax rate) and the IMF.

Regardless, the 15 billion wether it goes to an international organization or a new American one, is still 15 billion dollars meant to fight AIDS.

Ergo they are not cutting the fundamental bottom line, just changing the outlet. Which is fine, and lives have not been shown to have been lost b/c of it.

The biggest problem in Africa isn't education, its availability of drug cocktails. Look at the data in western countries from the last 20 years. A chart of education spending has little correlation with the spread of Aids. Medicine on the other hand, lengthens the HIV to AID transition time and has had a serious impact.

That being said, why would you want HIV+ people to live longer there? That just gives them more chance to infect others..?

 

[Sabastian]

The Percentage of GDP is a misnomer, a lot of the money is private aid (since we have a low tax rate) and the IMF.

Regardless, the 15 billion wether it goes to an international organization or a new American one, is still 15 billion dollars meant to fight AIDS.

Ergo they are not cutting the fundamental bottom line, just changing the outlet. Which is fine, and lives have not been shown to have been lost b/c of it.

The biggest problem in Africa isn't education, its availability of drug cocktails. Look at the data in western countries from the last 20 years. A chart of education spending has little correlation with the spread of Aids. Medicine on the other hand, lengthens the HIV to AID transition time and has had a serious impact.

That being said, why would you want HIV+ people to live longer there? That just gives them more chance to infect others..?

I would agree Zurich. I personally do think that education is the key. The matter is what is being educated. In Uganda they have saved millions of lives using education.

As AIDS sweeps across Africa, Uganda remains a lone success story, as millions of Ugandans have embraced traditional sexual morality, including sexual abstinence outside of marriage and fidelity within marraige, in order to avoid infection. But the international AIDS community has been reluctant to promote this strategy elsewhere, continuing, instead, to place its faith in condoms.

According to a US Agency for International Development (USAID) study of Uganda, "HIV prevalence peaked at around 15 percent in 1991, and had fallen to 5 percent as of 2001. This dramatic decline in prevalence is unique worldwide…" USAID believes "The most important determinant of the reduction in HIV incidence in Uganda appears to be a decrease in multiple sexual partnerships and networks."

In comparison to other African nations, "Ugandan males in 1995 were less likely to have ever had sex…, more likely to be married and keep sex within the marriage, and less likely to have multiple partners." USAID concludes that "the effect of HIV prevention in Uganda (particularly partner reduction) during the past decade appears to have had a similar impact as a potential medical vaccine of 80 percent efficacy….A comprehensive behavior change-based strategy…may be the most effective prevention approach."

However, the Ugandan experience is not being promoted elsewhere, which leads some observers to conclude that ideology may be playing a role. In fact, as news of the Ugandan success has spread, the defense of condoms has grown more insistent.

Specifically, international AIDS activist have increased their attacks on the Bush administration, which now seeks to incorporate abstinence training into the US international AIDS program. Amy Coen, president of Population Action International, recently stated that "the importance of condoms cannot be overstated….Yet here in the United States, we are witnessing a retreat on the part of the government and a wall of silence descending around condom use….The case for condoms is indisputable." And, according to a column by Marie Cocco in Newsday, "President George W. Bush has begun appointing critics of condoms to a presidential advisory panel on AIDS. They include social conservatives who question the international scientific consensus that condoms are highly effective in AIDS prevention."

This promotion of condoms continues, despite the mounting evidence that they have failed to stem the spread of the disease. For instance, led by Nelson Mandela, South Africa has firmly embraced the "safe sex" strategy, and condom use has increased. But South Africa remains the world leader in AIDS infection, with 11.4 percent of its population currently infected.

The international AIDS community appears determined to find a technological solution to the epidemic, rather than to suggest the types of behavior-change that have succeeded in Uganda. On Tuesday, the Mercury News of Miami reported that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will spend $28 million to study the potential of birth control diaphragms to combat AIDS in Africa. The Mercury News cautions, however, that "the scientific basis for diaphragms preventing AIDS is more theoretical than clinically proven."

Action item:
Write to the Ugandan Ambassador to the UN and thank him for his coutry's promotion of abstinence. You can reach Ambassador Semakula Kiwanuka at ugaun@undp.org.

http://www.righttoliferoch.org/nuganda.htm

Condom education does not work, look at the skyrocketing rates in South Africa.

 

[Sabastian]

"There was a dramatic change among students in 1987 and 1988. I took precautions. My friends changed their behavior. The ones that didn't succumbed to the disease," Dr. Kiwanuka said.

"The AIDS establishment laughed at him. ... But Museveni was right," said Dr. Hearst, who has just finished a report to UNAIDS on condom efficacy. "I've had people tell me that the only reason they were successful in Uganda is that there were no European or American experts there."

And while USAID distributed condoms by the billions and the numbers of HIV infections in the rest of Africa skyrocketed, the number of Ugandans becoming infected declined each year.

AIDS prevalence among pregnant women — the universal yardstick for determining the transmission rate of AIDS in a population — was 21 percent in 1991. By 2001, it had dropped to 6 percent.

In 1994, more than 60 percent of Ugandan boys ages 13-16 reported being sexually active, a number that dropped to about 15 percent in 1996 and 5 percent in 2001. Among girls, the shift was equally dramatic.

Most significantly, the number of men reporting two or more partners in a year dropped from more than 70 percent in 1989 to between 15 percent and 20 percent in 1995. The number of women reporting multiple partners dropped from 18 percent in 1989 to 2.5 percent by 2002.

Meanwhile, the use of condoms in high-risk groups rose to the highest level in Africa.

"We promote abstinence and delayed onset of sex among youth, partner reduction and condom use among the sexually active, voluntary counseling and testing, and the reduction of transmission of the virus from a mother to her newborn. If we are to win this fight against AIDS, we must use every tool at our disposal," said David Olson, Population Services International spokesman.

http://www.usaid.gov/press/releases/2003/uganda030313.html

 

[Moffell]

Someone is obviously not telling the whole story over at http://www.righttoliferoch.org/nuganda.htm. Hardly surprising IMO, it's not like they don't have an agenda to push.

Here's a snippet of an article with a bit more info.

Uganda's success in reducing high HIV infection rates is the result of high-level political commitment to HIV prevention and care, involving a wide range of partners and all sectors of society. Same-day results for HIV tests and social marketing of condoms and self-treatment kits for sexually transmitted infections, backed up by sex education programmes, have helped reduce very high HIV infection rates

And they also bring up abstinence.

Sex education programmes in schools and on the radio focused on the need to negotiate safe sex and encouraged teenagers to delay the age at which they first have sex. Since 1990, a USAID-funded scheme to increase condom use through social marketing of condoms has boosted condom use from 7% nationwide to over 50% in rural areas and over 85% in urban areas.

Imagine that, encourage abstinence and teach them how to protect themselves AND make condoms available!

Clearly Uganda is a shining beacon how to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa but teaching abstinence isn't the magic bullet that made it so.

A very informative article if I may say so.

http://www.who.int/inf-new/aids2.htm

 

[RussSchultz]

That being said, why would you want HIV+ people to live longer there? That just gives them more chance to infect others..?

The flipside of that is that parents dying young leaves a societal power vacuum and a whole lot of orphans that grow up to be angry young men.

 

[Sabastian]

Imagine that, encourage abstinence and teach them how to protect themselves AND make condoms available!

Clearly Uganda is a shining beacon how to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa but teaching abstinence isn't the magic bullet that made it so.

A very informative article if I may say so.

http://www.who.int/inf-new/aids2.htm

Well then you can ignore the fact that their promiscuity rate has substantially dropped all you want. Condom education and use is most prevalent in South Africa but they still have the highest infection rate. I will point you to some other statistics (that I already posted, but you ignored. BTW despite the source that does not say that they are wrong or anything of the sort.) that you may deny all you want but they are the key to stopping the spread of AIDS.

AIDS prevalence among pregnant women — the universal yardstick for determining the transmission rate of AIDS in a population — was 21 percent in 1991. By 2001, it had dropped to 6 percent.

In 1994, more than 60 percent of Ugandan boys ages 13-16 reported being sexually active, a number that dropped to about 15 percent in 1996 and 5 percent in 2001. Among girls, the shift was equally dramatic.

Most significantly, the number of men reporting two or more partners in a year dropped from more than 70 percent in 1989 to between 15 percent and 20 percent in 1995. The number of women reporting multiple partners dropped from 18 percent in 1989 to 2.5 percent by 2002.

Meanwhile, the use of condoms in high-risk groups rose to the highest level in Africa.

"We promote abstinence and delayed onset of sex among youth, partner reduction and condom use among the sexually active, voluntary counseling and testing, and the reduction of transmission of the virus from a mother to her newborn. If we are to win this fight against AIDS, we must use every tool at our disposal," said David Olson, Population Services International spokesman.

http://www.usaid.gov/press/releases/2003/uganda030313.html

Since condom education is wide spread as well as condoms but they by themselves have failed miserably to stop the spread of AIDS then it is a logical conclusion that indeed the promotion of abstinence in combination with serious social mores against promiscuity do indeed have a great effect of the spread of AIDS. This is undeniably the silver bullet to stopping the spread of AIDS that spreads almost entirely through sexual intercourse. The obvious failure of condom use to stop AIDS is so apparent that it shows just how wrong the pushers of condom use as the de facto standard in stopping the spread of AIDS really are.

It is the ignorance and intolerance to the idea of not being promiscuous that has been the greatest source of the increase in AIDS. Never mind the massive epidemics of HPV, Herpes, gonorrhea etc. Only an idiot could deny the reality of the positive effect of not being promiscuous having a negative effect on the spread of STDs and AIDS.

I never suggested that they shouldn't use condoms and neither did the sources for that information only that Uganda's education includes Abstinence and the creation of strong social mores against promiscuity with dramatic corresponding drops in the spread of AIDS. The real political bias is the one that preaches that there should not be an inclusion of Abstinence in sex education and the one that down plays its success rate at reducing AIDS infection rates at the cost of peoples lives. That is a sick political bias.

It seems quite obvious to any one with a half a brain that indeed their development of social mores against sexual promiscuity worked quite well in stopping the growth of the AIDS epidemic. I am just wondering how long it will take other countries to develop the same sort of social mores against sexual promiscuity in order to stop the proliferation of the virus. The bias against Abstinence education is the real stupidity.

 

[Moffell]

The bias against Abstinence education is the real stupidity.

That's just the point. There is no bias against abstinence. There are only a couple of morons that think sex education on how to protect oneself, knowledge about the disease and so on equals preaching promiscuity.

The bias is against teaching abstinence only which some people are all to eager to suggest. That doesn't work. The whole spectrum is needed, where medicine, social awareness and protective measures are some parts.

We are not really in disagreement here but singling out abstinence as the source of decreased promiscuity is ludicrious IMO. What about knowledge of the disease? Fear is always a good motivator is it not? How about promiscuity becoming "uncool"? Is that something that is brought on by teaching abstinence or could something else be responsible?
Uganda is a great example to see that everything is needed in fighting aids. Airdropping condoms only on a population would be as efficient driving around the countryside with pa systems attached yelling "DON'T DO IT, YOU'LL DIE!!"

 

[Fred]

The abstinence argument is lacking. There was an Economist article about it several years ago, that attempted to chart its utility, as I recall it wasn't spectacular. I can try to fish it out if people wish to argue that point.

Regardless, nearly everyone logically believes that a combination of all possible preventative measures is necessary. IMO one can make an argument that dispelling popular myths over there is probably better than abstinence/condom use/other contraceptive measures. Eg, some people in South Africa believe that having sex with a virgin actually kills the virus. Obviously, dispelling notions like this should be top priorities.

Still education is IMO not the answer. For instance, despite heavy PR campaigns in the Western block, Aids was not slowed until the arrival of medication.

The reason keeping people alive with HIV isn't so bad (forget about the moral argument), is its considerably less contagious than full blown AIDs. One can shrink the number density to extremely low levels with the appropriate cocktails. Yes, there is a tradeoff, since people will live longer thus increasing the number of partners.

The biggest problem in Africa, is Copyright issues. IMO its the single biggest debate that will make or break the eventual outcome.