US AIDS Policy of Disregard & Soul Saving (Part 2)

AIDS Prevention, Conservatively (Part 2 of 2)

(The American Prospect)
“This shift seems to send a message that we’ll only educate you after you’re infected,” Oatman said. “The CDC is under pressure to reduce infections, but the new guidelines have made it clear that young adults are not a priority even though their data shows that half of all new infections happen under the age of 25.”

The CDC, however, argues that it needs to focus on those who are already infected in order to make progress against the disease.

“Today about a quarter of the people who are HIV-positive don’t know that they are positive,” CDC spokeswoman Jessica Frickey said. “We need to get them connected to the services and knowledge they need to deal with this disease if we want to see a decrease in new cases. This doesn’t mean there has been any indication that the CDC prevention focus is going to change from its comprehensive approach.”

The shift away from prevention education is of a piece with many pro-abstinence policy decisions made by the Bush administration. In the last four years, funding for abstinence programs has more than doubled, from $80 million in fiscal year 2001 to $168 million in FY2005, while HIV/AIDS treatment, care, and prevention programs have mostly been flat-funded. The CDC's condom Web site was edited to emphasize abstinence, and its site on effective educational programs was removed altogether.

More troublingly, in 2002 and 2003 several leading AIDS organizations faced repeated audits. Around the same time, 150 National Institutes of Health-funded researchers were placed on a “hit list” given to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce by a group called the Traditional Values Coalition. The coalition deemed the researchers’ work on sexual behavior and HIV controversial.

And in June 2004, the CDC introduced new regulations that required groups receiving federal funding to submit all educational materials to review boards staffed by state and local health officials in addition to the prevention experts who currently review programs. While the policy has not yet gone into effect, its repercussions seem obvious.

“These guidelines could be very dangerous,” Riggs said. “If you live in a conservative community, you will basically have duct tape on your mouth.”

The abstinence focus is not the only obstacle, of course; the amount of money that goes to abstinence programs is only a fraction of the funds needed for comprehensive prevention, treatment, and care services. And HIV/AIDS programs are not the only ones strapped for funding; as Murray Penner, director of the care and treatment program at the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors, points out, most public-health programs are in similar straits.

But it is significant that an administration that has heralded itself as an international leader in the fight against HIV/AIDS has done so much to undermine the cause at home. It has dramatically increased funding for abstinence-only education while flat-funding crucial prevention and treatment programs. It has harassed community organizations working on HIV prevention. And while right-wing attacks have not completely destroyed the bonds of cooperation between the CDC and community organizations (many community organizers are quick to point out the strains the CDC itself faces from a tight budget and an ideological administration), there is a sense of caution among advocates when they talk about CDC policies. In this environment, it is difficult for many of them to tell just where science ends and dogma begins.

“This administration is trying to reinforce a certain conservative ideology, and that is not an appropriate use of federal funds,” Riggs said. “At the end of the day, they are putting peoples’ lives at risk.”

US AIDS Policy of Disregard & Soul Saving (Part 1)

Thursday, December 1st marks the 23rd World AIDS Day.

In the United States, we are averaging 40,000 new infections every year. 40,000! And trends show that that number is sadly rising. In Australia, where the federal government has taken a national, aggressive approach to preventing new infection through comprehensive education beginning in grade schools, they average only 800 new infections per year. Yes, only 800 new infections per year for the whole country! (http://www.avert.org/) 800 new infections vs. 40,000 new infections: This fact alone demonstrates that as a nation, we are doing something wrong, that we are not doing enough.

We in HIV prevention struggle daily against the conservative current. I believe this op-ed hits the mark about HIV prevention and the current political system dead on, and demonstrates the challenges we face to make a difference in a climate that prefers we go away.

What this writer states occurs in this counrty everyday. As I have come to call it, this policy of disregard and soul saving is not front page information. And 40,000 more will be infected because if it.

As I have written before, ignoring a problem will not make it go away, and just because it may not be your problem now, if this thinking persist... in time it will be. Sooner or later, we will all be affected. So I ask you to read this two part editorial and ask yourself one question... Is it appropitate that the current admistration wants to save save your soul rather than your life?

It seems to me as if we do it their way or or go away. Personally, I know their way is not working and I am not going away either. I am in this fight until the end. I hope you are to.

___________________________________________
AIDS Prevention, Conservatively (Part 1 of 2)
by Alyson Zureick, CBS News
August 23, 2005

"It is significant that an administration that has heralded itself as an international leader in the fight against HIV/AIDS has done so much to undermine the cause at home."

This was supposed to be a milestone year in the fight against AIDS. In 2001, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that it intended to intensify its prevention programs in order to cut new HIV infections in half by 2005. Instead, the number has held steady at 40,000 a year since 1998. Just this June, the CDC announced that, for the first time since the 1980s, more than 1 million people in this country are living with HIV or AIDS. This number partly reflects the fact that, thanks to medical advances, more people are living longer with the disease, even though public treatment and care programs for HIV-positive individuals -- such as the Ryan White CARE Act and Medicaid -- are massively strained for funds.

But they also represent a huge step backward on an essential front: prevention. Activists fear that the Bush administration is more concerned with ideology than prevention -- and that it is using institutions like the CDC to discourage organizations from broadcasting prevention messages that go against the administration’s conservative ideology.

The San Francisco-based Stop AIDS Project is a case in point. For years the organization, which works with gay and bisexual men at risk for HIV/AIDS, was considered the gold standard in HIV prevention. Stop AIDS began receiving federal funding from the CDC in 1992, according to spokesman Jason Riggs. A few years later, program staff and volunteers launched a number of projects that would become national program models for the CDC.

But in August 2002, after a decade of working with the CDC, Stop AIDS was hit with three successive audits, instigated by Indiana Congressman Mark Souder, who claimed that Stop AIDS was using federal funds to finance programs promoting sex. The organization passed each audit with flying colors, Riggs said, but still, in June 2003, the CDC informed Stop AIDS staff that they would have to end prevention workshops deemed too risqué or risk losing federal funding.

In the end, Riggs said, nothing came of the threats. Yet last summer, several of Stop AIDS’ programs were ruled ineligible for federal funding because of a shift, initiated last year by the CDC, in the types of community prevention programs eligible for federal funds.

Known as “Advancing HIV Prevention,” the guidelines redirect the federal prevention funding available to private community organizations away from groups working primarily on education and counseling and to community health clinics and organizations focused instead on HIV testing. Critics of the policy, like Terje Anderson, executive director of the National Association of People with AIDS, see the strategy as a way for the CDC to quietly defund the safe-sex education programs that have been controversial within the Bush administration.

“The ideology behind this strategy is all about individual choice, not the environment that shapes these choices,” Anderson said. “It ignores how much this disease is about social context.”

Dozens of organizations across the country lost funding, and many were forced to cut staff and programs. One of these, the Northern Virginia AIDS Ministry, now reaches 6,500 fewer young adults than before the CDC's decision, according to deputy director Andrew Oatman.

Truth About Condoms

Finally, the FDA is catching on.

Scarying people about sex does not make people NOT want sex.

The truth is comdoms are safe, they are smart to use and the only thing really frightening are those who think that preventing disease and saving lives are not as important as spreading fear.

Reminder: World's AIDS Day is Dec 1.

New FDA Condom Labels Won’t Verstate Failures
http://www.gaypeopleschronicle.com/stories05/november/1125057.htm

Share RENT with Friends

Having been a fan of the stage show, I am happy to say that the film version of RENT is well worth seeing. Naturally the movie lacks the high energy that jumps off the stage in certain numbers, and some songs were cut and there is more dialogue to help the story's momentum, but gratefully the story and themes of the musical remain intact. As the end credits rolled, it seemed most in the audience were frozen in their seats, catching their breath or just reflecting on what they just experienced. Many had tears in their eyes.

If you are a fan, you will not be disappointed and if you are a first-timer, you will be pleasantly surprised. This film is best shared with good friends, because good friends are what it is all about.

Official RENT - The Movie Website
http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/rent/

Haw Haw GOP

Dear poor GOP.

To quote The Simpson’s Nelson: “Haw Haw!”


Esquire: Clinton is World's "Most Influential Man"
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2005-11-15T232905Z_01_MCC584482_RTRUKOC_0_US-CLINTON.xml

Fair, Balanced and Mundane

Why do I keep hearing conservatives yammering about the "liberal media." It seems they have their own spokes holes as well. It's called Fox News. Oh how I missed the days of the Fairness Doctrine. It was mundane television, but it did not have to remind us it was fair and balanced (as Fox does). For the most part, it just was.

Fox News Won't Show Ad Opposing Alito http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051122/ap_on_go_su_co/alito_ad;_ylt=AvKzYqOov9XIfawSoV_kAV2s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3OXIzMDMzBHNlYwM3MDM-

QOTW 11.11

If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.

~ Aristotle

Is Pat Robertson God's Vegence?

When I hear the things that come out of Pat Robinson’s mouth I cannot help but wonder, what does God really think? Maybe Robertson is God’s reprisal on a society that takes his teaching at a literal level and not on a deeper, meaningful and truthful one. He is weeding out the weak minded from the strong, compassionate and forgiving. Read the bible, and decide for yourself.

Trust God, not Pat.

Televangelist Warns of Evolution Doomsday
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9995578

Surprise! Bush is Not Honest

Bush is not honest? Is this really news? What are we going to find out next: that there are no WMD's, that activitist judges are conservative as well as liberal, that homosexuals want the right to marry... is there no end to getting the real story?

AP Poll: Most Americans Say Bush Not Honest
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10000960

More Government; Less Gays

Here we go again. The Republican Party mantra of “less government” is now “more government; big government, nothing but government 24/7.” So much for states rights and Reagan’s New Federalism policies; The Republican are doing their part to keep the world safe from gays. But who is keeping us safe from the Republicans?

Federal Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment Moves Forward
http://pageoneq.com/rssfeedstuff/index.php?id=3971

Bush Leadership

Vatican Admits Science is Good

The bible teaches us that God created the heavens and the earth. After all he does not just spend his day his days crafting divine retributions, he dabbles in science as well.

I believe science is God's gift for us to use wisely. Apparently and finally, so does the Vatican.

The doors opened in 1992, when Pope John Paul II finally acknowledged that “we may have been hasty in our original condemnation of Galileo for heresy.” (http://www.dslnorthwest.net/~danwilcox/galileo.html ) It took the Vatican almost 360 years to concede that he was correct and that in fact, yes the earth is round. (So I don’t give up hope that the church will come around on understanding the difference between pedophilia and homosexuality.)

Today, the holy powers concedes that science is our friend. So dear fellow Catholics, seek invitro fertilization if needed, take medications daily, use condoms, and eat Splenda. These and the entire universe are God’s gift to us. Just remember to say thank you.

Vatican: Faithful Should Listen to Science
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-vatican-science,0,6358654,print.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines

QOTW 11.4

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

~ E.M. Forster

Changing Judge Won't Change Evidence

Tom Delay is getting a new judge, preferably one that is not a democrat. Tom’s argument for the change : “There should not be a public perception of partiality in the case,” say Tom’s lawyers. The fear is that a democrat judge will not treat him fairly.

Public perception has nothing to do with getting a new judge.

I have to wonder, if the money laundering and conspiracy charges against him are “completely false,” why all the trouble to stack the deck on his side.

Tom, you can change the judge but you cannot change the evidence.

Which is really why you want a new judge: to limit the facts presented in your trial. Let’s see what evidence you ask to be “inadmissible” under this new, hopefully conservatively sympathetic judge.

Anyhow, let’s hope this new presiding judge is true to the law and not to either political party. After all, “There should not be a public perception of partiality in the case.”

Judge Removed From DeLay's Criminal Case
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5385184,00.html

B+ for G.W.

Kudos to President Bush (see… I don’t just bash him) for his insightful and proactive approach to what could be a “new pandemic.” (“Pandemic”: Bush’s new word of the week. Okay a little bashing. I can’t help it.)

With surprising forethought, the Bush administration is planning ahead in preparation for the deadly possibilities of a bird flu outbreak. Very wise, very astute, and just when Bush’s approval rating is at a record low. Coincidence? Who knew public health was a pawn for political popularity? To bad Reagan's numbers were so good in the 80s; maybe we have an AIDS vaccine today?

Dear George W., with 40 million people infected with H.I.V. worldwide, Bird Flu may be a new pandemic but it is certainly not the only one we should be working against. B+ for effort.

Bush Outlines $7.1 billion Flu Pandemic Strategy
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9883713