Bush + Christians + Africa = more AIDS infections
Uganda was once an HIV prevention success story, where an ambitious government-sponsored prevention campaign, including massive condom distribution and messages about delaying sex and reducing numbers of partners, pushed HIV rates down from 15 percent in the early 1990s to 5 percent in 2001. But conservative evangelicals rewrote this history--with the full-throated cooperation of Uganda's evangelical first family, the Musevenis. As one Family Research Council paper put it:
"Both abstinence and monogamy helped to curb the spread of AIDS in Uganda...How did this happen? Shortly after he came into office in 1986, President Museveni of Uganda spearheaded a mass education campaign promoting a three-pronged AIDS prevention message: abstinence from sexual activity until marriage; monogamy within marriage; and condoms as a last resort. The message became commonly known as ABC: Abstain, Be faithful, and use Condoms if A and B fail."
This warped version of the true Uganda story became the mantra in Bush's Washington, with the "C" reduced more and more to an afterthought as time went by. For example, in piling on against a 2002 pro-condom comment by then Secretary of State Colin Powell, Focus on the Family's James Dobson wrote condoms out of the story entirely: "Secretary Powell seems to be ignorant of the fact the Uganda has made great progress against AIDS by emphasizing abstinence, not condoms." Soon, players connected with the Christian right, from Franklin Graham's Samaritan's Purse to Anita Smith's Children's AIDS Fund, cashed in to the tune of millions of dollars in federal grants to spread the abstinence message in Uganda, the Christian rights' new showcase for a morality-based approach to AIDS. In the case of Smith's outfit, her proposal was shot down by a scientific review committee, but politics prevailed: the head of U.S. AID overruled the experts and demanded that the program be funded.
Anita Smith has long been a close ally of Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma senator James Dobson helped get elected who is so fanatically pro-abstinence that he has pushed for warning labels on condoms and once demanded the ouster of the head of the Centers for Disease Control for promoting condom use. Coburn's legislative director, Roland Foster, used to regularly send out Children's AIDS Fund emails trashing HIV prevention organizations for being too sexually explicit and calling for them to be investigated and defunded. (Many were.) Once Coburn, a former Congressman, was elected to the Senate in 2004, President Bush picked Smith to replace Coburn as the head of his Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS. Now, according to the State Department email printed below, she's an official U.S. delegate to next week's UN Special Session on AIDS.
(read the rest of this very compelling article here)
IF you want to read more on Senator Coburn go here
and here is a quote from said article "Coburn is the most dangerous creature that can come to the Senate, someone simply uninterested in being popular."
And here is some info on Anita Smith:
Anita Smith: to the President's Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA), a body established during the Clinton administration to provide policy recommendations on the U.S. government's response to HIV/AIDS. An outspoken opponent of comprehensive sexuality education with close ties to the Bush administration, Smith is vice president of the Institute for Youth Development and head of the Children's AIDS Fund (CAF). CAF was originally founded as Americans for Sound AIDS/HIV Policy by Smith and her husband, Shepherd Smith, in the 1990s. In 2004 their organization applied for funding from the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to implement an "abstinence-only" HIV prevention program in Uganda, but a federal expert panel deemed their project "not suitable for funding." Without explanation, the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator overrode the panel's decision and authorized the grant to CAF. On February 15, 2005, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) wrote to the Global AIDS Coordinator's office to learn why the grant was made despite the proposal's negative rating, but to date he has received no response.
"Both abstinence and monogamy helped to curb the spread of AIDS in Uganda...How did this happen? Shortly after he came into office in 1986, President Museveni of Uganda spearheaded a mass education campaign promoting a three-pronged AIDS prevention message: abstinence from sexual activity until marriage; monogamy within marriage; and condoms as a last resort. The message became commonly known as ABC: Abstain, Be faithful, and use Condoms if A and B fail."
This warped version of the true Uganda story became the mantra in Bush's Washington, with the "C" reduced more and more to an afterthought as time went by. For example, in piling on against a 2002 pro-condom comment by then Secretary of State Colin Powell, Focus on the Family's James Dobson wrote condoms out of the story entirely: "Secretary Powell seems to be ignorant of the fact the Uganda has made great progress against AIDS by emphasizing abstinence, not condoms." Soon, players connected with the Christian right, from Franklin Graham's Samaritan's Purse to Anita Smith's Children's AIDS Fund, cashed in to the tune of millions of dollars in federal grants to spread the abstinence message in Uganda, the Christian rights' new showcase for a morality-based approach to AIDS. In the case of Smith's outfit, her proposal was shot down by a scientific review committee, but politics prevailed: the head of U.S. AID overruled the experts and demanded that the program be funded.
Anita Smith has long been a close ally of Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma senator James Dobson helped get elected who is so fanatically pro-abstinence that he has pushed for warning labels on condoms and once demanded the ouster of the head of the Centers for Disease Control for promoting condom use. Coburn's legislative director, Roland Foster, used to regularly send out Children's AIDS Fund emails trashing HIV prevention organizations for being too sexually explicit and calling for them to be investigated and defunded. (Many were.) Once Coburn, a former Congressman, was elected to the Senate in 2004, President Bush picked Smith to replace Coburn as the head of his Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS. Now, according to the State Department email printed below, she's an official U.S. delegate to next week's UN Special Session on AIDS.
(read the rest of this very compelling article here)
IF you want to read more on Senator Coburn go here
and here is a quote from said article "Coburn is the most dangerous creature that can come to the Senate, someone simply uninterested in being popular."
And here is some info on Anita Smith:
Anita Smith: to the President's Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA), a body established during the Clinton administration to provide policy recommendations on the U.S. government's response to HIV/AIDS. An outspoken opponent of comprehensive sexuality education with close ties to the Bush administration, Smith is vice president of the Institute for Youth Development and head of the Children's AIDS Fund (CAF). CAF was originally founded as Americans for Sound AIDS/HIV Policy by Smith and her husband, Shepherd Smith, in the 1990s. In 2004 their organization applied for funding from the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to implement an "abstinence-only" HIV prevention program in Uganda, but a federal expert panel deemed their project "not suitable for funding." Without explanation, the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator overrode the panel's decision and authorized the grant to CAF. On February 15, 2005, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) wrote to the Global AIDS Coordinator's office to learn why the grant was made despite the proposal's negative rating, but to date he has received no response.
posted by Bludlust at 1:40 PM
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