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The US Abstinence-only push worsens Africa's AIDS situation, says UN
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| HardTranceProd |
An inane and retared policy formulated by Christian nuts in this country could only be viable here in the US, which is a rather uptight part of the world. But in the UN, where this push for abstinence only to fight AIDS came under international spotlight, America is now seen as a laughingstock:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9118071/
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - The U.S. government’s emphasis on abstinence-only programs to prevent AIDS is hobbling Africa’s battle against the pandemic by downplaying the role of condoms, a senior U.N. official said on Monday.
Stephen Lewis, the U.N. secretary general’s special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, said fundamentalist Christian ideology was driving Washington’s AIDS assistance program known as PEPFAR with disastrous results, including condom shortages in Uganda.
The Bush administration favors prevention programs that focus on abstinence rather than condom use and has more than doubled funding for U.S. abstinence-only programs over the past five years.
As part of President Bush’s global AIDS plan, the U.S. government has already budgeted about $8 million this year for abstinence-only projects in Uganda, human rights groups say.
Severe shortage of condoms
Activists in both Uganda and the United States say the country is now in the grip of condom shortage so severe that men are using plastic garbage bags in an effort to protect themselves.
“There is no question in my mind that the condom crisis in Uganda is being driven and exacerbated by PEPFAR and by the extreme policies that the administration in the U.S. is now pursuing in the emphasis on abstinence,” Lewis told journalists on a teleconference.
“That distortion of the preventive apparatus ... is resulting in great damage and undoubtedly will cause significant numbers of infections which should never have occurred.”
Many health experts say condoms are the most effective bulwark against AIDS.
The Office of the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator which administers PEPFAR did not immediately return calls seeking comment. It has rejected criticism over condom policy in the past, saying it maintains a balanced approach to prevention.
Uganda had been praised for cutting HIV infection rates to around 6 percent today from 30 percent in the early 1990s, a rare success story in Africa’s battle against the disease.
But President Yoweri Museveni’s government has come under criticism for sidelining its condom policy, a move activists tie to pressure from Washington through its PEPFAR program.
The Ugandan government, which in 2004 recalled free condoms over quality fears, has failed to provide alternatives — pushing the price of store-bought condoms up threefold, Ugandan activist Beatrice.
“What PEPFAR has done is to have made it possible for a number of Pentacostal and more fundamentalist churches to pursue the abstinence agenda,” he said.
“I think the administration and PEPFAR have to come to their senses ... to impose dogmatic policies is doing great damage to Africa.” |
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| Lepanto |
| you've never been outside of this country have you? And that article has made more sense 2+2=4:rolleyes: |
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| HardTranceProd |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lepanto
you've never been outside of this country have you?
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haha idiot I've traveled a lot :cool: |
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| Lepanto |
| quote: | Originally posted by HardTranceProd
haha idiot I've traveled a lot :cool: |
yeah i'm sure you have, fool, that's why we're "uptight":stongue: |
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| HardTranceProd |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lepanto
yeah i'm sure you have, fool, that's why we're "uptight":stongue: |
well, you tell me, where else in the world are 3-year-old girls required to wear tops on the beach, and where else in the world will the guy at your local Chipotle card a 40-year-old for beer and escort him with the glass to his table.
:rolleyes:
On topic: Where else do pharmacists increasingly refuse to sell condoms... |
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| Lepanto |
i've never see a 3 year old with a top to the beach or anything else you've said, you must be 14 years old from that first paragraph.
let's just all spend money on africa's condoms because they are too stupid to stop ing. LMAO:D
oh yeah, traveling to canada does not mean traveling.
As to answer to your question about the beach, in switzerland, austria, spain, to name a few you weren't allowed to wear a thong to the beach. something i enjoy daily here ;)
now let's forget the fact that the media is mostly full of , what do YOU propose we do about poor ol' Africa?
| quote: | Originally posted by HardTranceProd
On topic: Where else do pharmacists increasingly refuse to sell condoms... |
albania, romania, bulgaria, latvia, lithuania, estonia, the Ukraine, Russia, Bellorussia, georgia, uzbekistan, vietnam, north korea, cuba, argentina, brazil, Moldova, Serbia, the list goes on and on and on and on and on. |
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| HardTranceProd |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lepanto
albania, romania, bulgaria, latvia, lithuania, estonia, the Ukraine, Russia, Bellorussia, georgia, uzbekistan, vietnam, north korea, cuba, argentina, brazil, Moldova, Serbia, the list goes on and on and on and on and on. |
WTF moron do you even know what you're talking about???
Lithuania, Estonia, Belorussia, Russia????
Are you crazy, ever been in these countries?? I SURE HAVE!
People are not religious there! Condoms are in school vending machines in these countries, idiot!!!
There are vending machines with condoms in most high schools in Russia, France, and other European countries!!! |
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| George Smiley |
| Have you ever had sex Lapento? |
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| Lepanto |
| quote: | Originally posted by HardTranceProd
WTF moron do you even know what you're talking about???
Lithuania, Estonia, Belorussia, Russia????
Are you crazy, ever been in these countries?? I SURE HAVE!
People are not religious there! Condoms are in school vending machines in these countries, idiot!!!
There are vending machines with condoms in most high schools in Russia, France, and other European countries!!! |
really? i lived in russia and the ukraine and i frequently visit latvia and estonia because of my family's business :D
they are fairly available but who actually bothers with them there since most people are poor?
Until the mid-1990s, most of the countries of the former Soviet Union appeared to have been spared the worst of the HIV epidemic. Mass screening of blood samples from people whose behaviour put them at risk of infection showed extremely low levels of HIV, right up to 1994. At that time the whole of Eastern Europe put together had around 30,000 infections among its 450 million people, Western Europe had over 15 times as many cases, while in sub-Saharan Africa over 400 times as many people were living with the virus.
The AIDS epidemic in Eastern Europe and Central Asia now shows no signs of declining. Some 210,000 people were infected with HIV in 2004, bringing the total number of people living with the virus to 1.4 million. AIDS claimed 60,000 lives in the past year.
Worst affected are the Russian Federation, Ukraine, and the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), but HIV continues to spread in Belarus, Moldova and Kazakhstan, while more recent epidemics are now evident in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. It is estimated that around 860,000 people aged 15-49 were living with HIV in the Russian Federation at the end of 2003 (though estimates vary widely).
Driving these epidemics is widespread risky behaviour - injecting drug use and unsafe sex - among young people. Extraordinarily large numbers of young people regularly or irregularly engage in injecting drug use. This is reflected in increasing HIV prevalence among injecting drug users throughout the former Soviet Union.
In many countries of the former Soviet Union, such as the Russian Federation, Ukraine and Belarus, the fight against the epidemic is being waged against a complicated backdrop. Socio-economic instability in the region is fuelling drug use and commercial sex, and thus increasing the spread of HIV. On a more positive note, however, political and legal reforms are creating more effective avenues to HIV prevention. For instance, instead of relying on ineffective mass screening of the population to track and control HIV, most countries are using a range of channels to inform and educate their citizens about the virus. Also, the region is increasingly turning to proper HIV surveillance in sentinel populations, for example, in sex workers, pregnant women, injecting drug users, or people with a sexually transmitted infection.
The major problem is as in other lesser developed countries is poverty. Which disables to the masses to be educated and to acquire condoms and other contraceptives.
READ RETARD
you've yet to answer my question however while spewing your gobbledegook posts. what do you propose we do about the problem since you're so well informed |
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| HardTranceProd |
what you wrote has no relevance to the topic of the thread, which is the attempt to lessen the availability of condoms due to a conservative American agenda.
I agree there may be HIV problems in Russia and Eastern Europe, but there is no attempt by any government there or by any group there to suppress the availability of condoms, quite the contrary: they're freely available and there are government programs to popularize their use. |
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| occrider |
| This thread is going to go Opus in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... |
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| Lepanto |
| quote: | Originally posted by HardTranceProd
what you wrote has no relevance to the topic of the thread, which is the attempt to lessen the availability of condoms due to a conservative American agenda.
I agree there may be HIV problems in Russia and Eastern Europe, but there is no attempt by any government there or by any group there to suppress the availability of condoms, quite the contrary: they're freely available and there are government programs to popularize their use. |
correct and neither has anything you've written. but what i posted about russia is EXTREMELY relevant. first of, it disputes your claim that just because condoms are available they will actually be used. therefore, the problem in africa isn't condoms.
would you rather the US spend even more money on help to Africa while everything else we and the UN spends makes no difference as it is? It's a very hard to solve problem, and throwing money or condoms at it isn't going to make it go away, dude. |
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