What I have always appreciated about Desmond Tutu is that he's not afraid to call out anyone. When praise is due, he's quickly there to offer praise. When criticism is deserved, he's not shy regardless of who it is or what position that person holds. Tutu is one of the best out there. NY Times Op Ed:
George W. Bush made an impressive commitment to the international fight against AIDS when he formed the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief program. Since 2004, Pepfar has spent $19 billion to help distribute anti-viral treatments to about 2.5 million Africans infected with H.I.V.
Thanks to these efforts — and similar initiatives, like those spearheaded by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria — the number of African patients with access to AIDS drugs jumped tenfold from 2003 to 2008. Since 2004, the AIDS-related mortality rate in sub-Saharan Africa has dropped 18 percent.
Yet President Obama added only $366 million to the program this year — well below the $1 billion per year he promised to add when he was on the campaign trail. (Pepfar’s total budget now stands at $7 billion.) Most of the countries in Pepfar will see no increase in aid.
Blocking local artists from participating was silly but stopping the open distribution of condoms is insane. Please tell me this is all a massive misunderstanding. The situation in South Africa is bad enough without a bunch of idiots from Fifa contributing to one of the most serious AIDS problems in the world.
Aids groups in South Africa have accused Fifa of banning the distribution of condoms at World Cup stadiums and other venues.
The Aids Consortium and other groups also criticised a block on the distribution of safe sex information at stadiums and fan parks, even though alcohol can be advertised.
South Africa has the world's largest number of HIV carriers, with an estimated 5.7 million people infected – about one in every five adults. There are around 1,400 new HIV infections every day and nearly 1,000 Aids deaths.
This has prompted calls for a health initiative to prevent the virus spreading as hundreds of thousands of football fans pour into the country for the World Cup, which starts next Friday.
When I first saw the headline, I assumed that this was something dating back to the former South West Africa days. Amazingly, it's something much more recent. BBC:
Three women in Namibia are suing the state for allegedly being sterilised without their informed consent after being diagnosed as HIV positive.
The women say the doctors and nurses should have informed them properly about what was happening.
The rights group representing them, the Legal Assistance Centre, says it has documented 15 cases of alleged HIV sterilisation in hospitals since 2008.
Sounds like a potentially good solution to lowering the AIDS rate in many poor countries. Fewer complications are an added bonus for this project that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is supporting. China produced some excellent solutions to problems that impact many poor countries and this sounds like their latest easy but good solution.
The most powerful force against AIDS in Africa may be circumcision, a procedure that's easily done in the developed world. But it's a challenge on a continent where there are too few medical workers and a reluctance by men for cultural reasons and fear of pain.
Now there may be a new weapon in the arsenal — a ring-shaped device that is mostly painless and requires less time for health workers.
The Chinese-developed device, the ShangRing, has been tested in a small study in Kenya and a larger test is set for later this year. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will invest about $4 million into studying the device.
This is a bad sign. Generally speaking, if the President campaigned on something, and the White House still supported the commitment, a White House official would not back away from reiterating the commitment. This likely won't sit well with the AIDS community, the gay community, and many others.
Read More......
It's about time. As beneficial as a good diet can be for general health and especially those who are sick, it still doesn't replace proven medicine. The problem has been much too serious for too long so it's a positive sign for a very hard hit country.
The United States is giving South Africa $120 million for AIDS treatment drugs in response to a plea from President Jacob Zuma that underlines his new approach to fighting the epidemic in the country with the world's heaviest AIDS burden.
His predecessor's health minister distrusted drugs developed to keep AIDS patients alive, instead promoting beets and garlic treatments. Zuma, who took over after April elections, and his health minister have said former President Thabo Mbeki's AIDS policies were wrong. Zuma's government has set a target of getting 80 percent of those who need AIDS drugs on them by 2011.
Damn. There was initially a great deal of hope that this was a serious breakthrough in treatment. We will have to wait a bit longer and keep our fingers crossed for the next development.
The full results, presented at the Aids vaccine conference in Paris and published immediately online by the New England Journal of Medicine reveal that:
• The vaccine did not protect those at high risk of HIV infection, such as sex workers and intravenous drug users.
• The protective effect was greatest in the first 12 months and then seemed to diminish.
• When those who did not get all six vaccine shots were taken out of the analysis, the positive result was statistically insignificant.
The result came after the world's largest Aids vaccine trial of more than 16,000 volunteers in Thailand.
Recent failures led many scientists to think such a vaccine might never be possible.
Even though the benefit is modest, "it's the first evidence that we could have a safe and effective preventive vaccine", military spokesman Jerome Kim said in a telephone interview. He helped lead the study for the US Army, which sponsored it with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Just did a post at Gay.AMERICAblog.com on the mess in California. It's ugly. In the words of Rex Wockner, using the line-item veto, Governor Schwarzenegger "decimated AIDS services across the board."
Great legacy for Arnold. His wife, Maria Shriver, should be so proud of him. Because of Arnold, according to the California Dept. of Public Health, "more people will become infected." With the lack of services, more people will get sicker and need more care. More people will probably die. For some Californians, Arnold really is the Terminator.
Read More......
UPDATE: The GOP is also coming up with amendments to short-circuit the lifting of the ban.
This really came out of nowhere. Yesterday, we had AIDS activists quite literally close down the US Capitol Rotunda to protest President Obama's request to Congress to keep the federal ban on needle exchange in place (Obama had promised during the election to help lift the ban, but in his budget this year asked Congress to keep it). Today, we have the mark-up of the House Labor-HHS Appropriations bill, and in it is a repeal of the needle exchange ban. (The CDC, WHO, NIH and President Clinton's Surgeon General all found that needle exchange programs decrease the spread of HIV.)
Was this in response to the protests yesterday? I suspect a bit of yes and a bit of no. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been dogging this issue (for the good guys) for 14 years now. So this is a priority for the Speaker. But this news, coming on the heels of the protests, sure suggests that they had an impact. And good for them. And good for the Speaker. A lesser politician would say "you know, I want to include needle exchange in the mark-up, but because of the protests we have to take it out, or else we'll look like we caved to public pressure." Pelosi, on the other hand, just went ahead with the policy change because it's the right thing to do.
The House has now presented the Obama administration with a perfect opportunity to show leadership. In explaining why the president asked Congress to continue the ban in his most recent budget, an administration spokesman said:
"We have not removed the ban in our budget proposal because we want to work with Congress and the American public to build support for this change," he said.
I'm happy to take that statement at face value. What's the administration's plan for working with Congress to get the votes in the full House, and to get the needle exchange ban on the docket, and passed, in the Senate?
UPDATE: That White House Web site pledge to support repeal of the federal ban on needle exchange? It appears to be gone.
Woah. Joe and I got wind of this last night. (Great picture on the home page of Roll Call.)
A group of 26 AIDS activists chained themselves to each other in the Capitol Rotunda on Thursday morning, startling visitors, shutting down the landmark area and prompting their arrest by Capitol Police.
The group, which was protesting President Barack Obama’s failure to get rid of a ban on funding needle exchange programs, arrived at the Rotunda around 10 a.m.
Candidate Obama said he would help overturn the ban on needle exchange. President Obama reversed himself and banned federal funding for needle exchanges in his budget this year.
Obama, during the primary campaign, pledged his support of needle exchange programs to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS. When he took over the White House, the administration website affirmed: "The President also supports lifting the federal ban on needle exchange, which could dramatically reduce rates of infection among drug users."
Yet Obama's budget includes language that bans spending federal money on needle-exchange programs.
White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said the administration isn't yet ready to lift the ban - but Obama still supports needle exchange.
"We have not removed the ban in our budget proposal because we want to work with Congress and the American public to build support for this change," he said.
Let's see...
1. The candidate promised to lift the ban. 2. The White House Web site reaffirmed the president's commitment to lifting the ban. 3. The White House Web site no longer reaffirms his commitment to lifting the ban. 4. The president now refuses to lift the ban. 5. The president actually affirmatively makes things worse by administratively supporting defending the ban. 6. The spokesman reiterates the president's support for lifting the ban, some day, once Congress gets around to it.
