• January 29, 2008 3:09 PM

    Healing and Hope? Really?

    The President discussed his HIV prevention policies during his State of the Union speech yesterday, as quoted in ThinkProgress:

    "And our Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief is treating 1.4 million people [in Africa]. We can bring healing and hope to many more. So I ask you to maintain the principles that have changed behavior and made this program a success."

    ThinkProgress the analyzed some of hte un-discussed results of Bush's AIDS prevention programs: a shortage of condoms in Uganda, the Global Gag rule, and additional steps backwards for the health of people in developing nations. Bush has also mandated that a third of the anti-AIDS funding go for abstinence-only education, while according to the American Prospect 2/3 of HIV prevention money is used for that purpose. This is particularly useless in countries where women are often raped or sold into brothels by family members. It's one more reason CREDO members are sending a message to Congress: repeal the Global Gag Rule and truly support the health of women and men around the globe.

    Posted by Justin Krebs
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Discussion

  • Elizabeth Pisani [TypeKey Profile Page] :

    It's not just the gag rule we need to repeal. It is the Loyalty Oath, which prevents us from working constructively to make the sex industry safer for its workers. And it is the prohibition on using US money to provide drug injectors with easy access to clean needles.

    Bush is proud to have bought (often expensive, US-made) drugs for 1.4 million Africans, and one does have to give the administration some credit for upping the ante on access to treatment. But how is it OK to treat someone when they've contracted a preventable, fatal disease, but not OK to prevent them getting it in the first place, at a fraction of the cost?

    Posted on January 30, 2008 9:46 AM

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