Book Offers Eye-Opening Look at Preventing AIDS

Focus on the Family ^ | January 5, 2004 | Jerry Gramckow

[Federalist 78]

Harvard scientist Edward C. Green's take on the "First-World" approaches to a Third-World pandemic is first-rate.

A novelist might find in Dr. Edward C. Green's new book "Rethinking AIDS Prevention" abundant material for a juicy mystery thriller. That's not to say anything about Green's book is fanciful or even exaggerated. But it's easy to imagine a storyline built around arrogantly idealistic Western scientists and not-so-idealistic profiteers forcing foreign ideas about AIDS prevention on a desperate African continent.

Green, a Harvard research scientist, wrote "Rethinking AIDS Prevention" (Praeger Publishers, 2003) for a broad audience, and he remains (mostly) an objective scientist throughout the book. Only occasionally does his frustration with his intransigent public health colleagues and their passionate dedication to condoms uber alles rise clearly to the surface. Instead, the book dispassionately lays out loads of evidence, all pointing to one inescapable conclusion: First-World health experts have condescendingly imposed their own AIDS-prevention agendas and methods on Third-World subjects — with questionable success, and, in some cases, tragic results.

What's more, "Rethinking AIDS Prevention" reveals that at least one poor and technologically unsophisticated country, Uganda, managed to reverse its AIDS pandemic before Western "experts" arrived with their "scientifically proven prevention and treatment methods."

Green reveals that Uganda, the nation with the world's most impressive AIDS turnaround, achieved its victories through strong leadership from its president and first lady, Yoweri and Janet Museveni, who championed Uganda's now famous "ABC" campaign. "A" stands for abstinence outside marriage, "B" means "be faithful to your spouse" (the colorful Ugandan colloquialism is "zero-grazing") and "C" refers to condom use for those who refuse to practice A and B. But that's the part of the Ugandan success story many have heard already.

Among the less-publicized facts "Rethinking AIDS Prevention" brings to light: "The region of Uganda with the lowest HIV seroprevalence (Karamoja) also happens to have the lowest recorded levels of condom use (about 3%)." (Seroprevalence refers to the prevalence of a disease as calculated based on the results of blood tests in a sample of a target population.) Additionally, Green's book includes a table showing the African nations with the highest average annual condom-use rates also are the nations with the highest HIV prevalence rates. For example, Zimbabwe, where men use an average of 10 condoms per year, has a prevalence rate of 25 percent. Senegal, with an annual male condom-use rate of three, has a prevalence rate of 1 percent.

That Dr. Green cites such evidence of an apparent correlation between condom use and HIV rates does not mean he unwaveringly opposes condom use. Green is a self-described liberal, and he is not opposed on principle to condom use. Rather, he is scientist whose decades-long research and public health work have convinced him that "developed" nations' morality-free solution to AIDS (mass distribution of condoms and post-infection drug treatment) is not the best answer for "underdeveloped" nations that are more open to a morality-based message.

Indeed, Green's book persuasively argues for making faith-based organizations (FBOs) central to the worldwide assault on HIV/AIDS. Green argues that Western health agencies' largely antagonistic attitude toward religious organizations is counterproductive, particularly in areas in which religious organizations have long been the most influential institutions around. If FBOs oppose condom distributions, let them do what they do (and have done) best: Teach and inspire abstinence and partner fidelity and provide aid and comfort to those who didn't follow those practices and have become afflicted, Green contends.

Coming from a liberal Harvard research scientist, this approach to the world's worst pandemic may appear novel, but it's far from fiction. It's abundantly educational, it's practical, and it's truly engaging reading for a topic that could have been bogged down by academic esotericism and cultural sensitivities.

[Federalist 78]

AEGiS-BAR: Gay named to head AIDS office

The Bush administration has chosen an openly gay man, Scott H. Evertz, to lead the White House Office of National AIDS Policy (ONAP). The announcement came on Monday, April 9, along with other details of how the administration's AIDS activities will be structured.

Rich Tafel, executive director of Log Cabin Republicans, called it "an historic appointment" for a Republican president.

"We are absolutely pleased," said Winnie Stachelberg, political director of the Human Rights Campaign. "I think it is a major sign that the administration is committed to fighting this epidemic on a national and global level."

Practical Politics: Larry Cirignano

In his State of the Union message, President Bush pledged $15 Billion to combat AIDS in Africa and some Caribbean countries. It was a high profile offer of humanitarian aid. It was also an outreach to the homosexual lobby and a huge government subsidy to the pharmaceutical companies in America who have brought the cost of a year’s supply of medicine for AIDS patients from $12,000 down to $300 a year.

Fifteen billion is a lot of money. The entire State of New Jersey budget is only $24 billion. Should we really be giving away AIDS medicine in Africa when many of our senior citizens cannot afford their prescriptions? If a person gets AIDS should they have to go to Africa to get ‘free’ treatment?

Fighting AIDS in Africa is a great cause. I question whether we ought to be fighting to stop the spread of AIDS here in America first? Shouldn’t we be providing food and clean water to the people of Africa rather than condoms?

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[Atlas Sneezed]

Here's the reality: When the man and woman are free of genital sores it is unknown for all practical purposes for one with HIV to infect the other via normal sex.

The best studies show that it takes 500-1000 acts of unprotected sex for an infected man to infect a woman, and that does not exclude practices common to gay men, or pre-existing genital sores. No healthy man has EVER been shown in the medical literature to have been infected by having sex with a woman.

Transmission of AIDS via normal sex between otherwise healthy people is essentially nonexistent.

Of course, in Africa STDs run rampant, due to lack of basic medical care, a culture that actually views sores as a madge of manhood, and rampant infidelity.

The cure for heterosexual AIDS in Africa is penicillin, combined with a societal change that you don't have sex until your STD is cured.

But Bush sent $15 billion of our earnings to try alternative solutions that miss the mark.

[reed_inthe_wind]

Sadly, our self righteous liberals with their own international agenda will suppress this story.

[lelio]

The cure for heterosexual AIDS in Africa is penicillin

I would throw in there cheap needles for doctors offices so they quit reusing the same ones over and over.

[Servant of the 9]

This doesn't take Rocket Science, condoms or even abstinance.

Women:
1. Don't do drug dealers or bisexual men.
2. Don't become a Crack Whore.

Men:
1. Don't other men.
2. Don't do Crack Whores.

Those simple rules will keep your chances of contracting HIV down to about the level of your chances of being hit by lightning.

SO9

[Senator Pardek]

The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS – A Nine-Year Retrospective of Fear and (Mostly) Loathing

[gusopol3]

sorry...DO's always beat Don'ts DO be abstinent DO be faithful.

[Atlas Sneezed]

Women:
1. Don't do drug dealers or bisexual men.
2. Don't become a Crack Whore.

Men:
1. Don't other men.
2. Don't do Crack Whores.

---

Lots of good reason for that last one, but no healthy man was ever infected with HIV by boinking a crack whore.

[Atlas Sneezed]

How can one ever prove a negative?

In Michael Fumento's "Myth of Heterosexual AIDS" or perhaps another book on the subject, the only case of an American man verifibaly alleging to have gotten AIDS from a woman was a guy with chrinically bleeding gums who spent lots of time performing oral sex on urban prostitutes.

There is no evidence the a healthy man can get AIDS by having conventional unprotected sex with a woman. No evidence. Let me know if I am wrong.

[LPStar]

3. Don't use injectible street drugs with shared needles.

[dsc]

"Lots of good reason for that last one, but no healthy man was ever infected with HIV by boinking a crack whore."

Maybe, but I'll bet a lot of them ended up with herniated aesthetic sensibilities.

[dsc]

"President Bush pledged $15 Billion to combat AIDS in Africa"

Oh, Mr. President, how about 10 cents for American military veterans dying of Hepatitis C--which they contracted in the course of their military duties?

No?

How about 5 cents?

Oh, I'm sorry. I should have anticipated that you would need that nickel to phone another c*cks*cking fudge-packer and offer him a job.

[ValerieUSA]

Increased condom use = increased AIDS

reminds me of

Increased birth control pill use = increased pregnancy rates among unwed women