| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Tuttles Almanac" |
| Date: |
04 Apr 2006 08:56:56 PM |
| Object: |
Bush blows $1,000,000,000 in taxes on Abstinency Propaganda |
Bush Admin. $15B AIDS Plan Questioned
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=1805933&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312
Apr 4, 2006 (AP)— The Bush administration's $15 billion
global AIDS initiative is emphasizing sexual abstinence
and fidelity more than Congress intended, and that focus
is undermining prevention efforts in poor countries,
congressional investigators said Tuesday.
U.S. teams on the ground in Africa and other poor areas
told Congress' Government Accountability Office that the
requirement that they spend a specific percentage of their
money on abstinence is hurting some efforts to tailor
prevention programs to countries' needs.
The directives are creating confusion and forcing
reduction in some programs deemed necessary for
pregnant women, high-risk groups like truck drivers
and sex workers, married couples and sexually active youths,
the GAO said.
President Bush's five-year plan touts a three-pronged
approach to AIDS prevention commonly called "ABC" that
combines abstinence, fidelity ("being faithful") and
condoms in target countries.
The GAO reported there was "general consensus" among public
health experts internationally that the three-pronged
prevention approach "can have a positive impact in
combating HIV/AIDS." But it recommended Congress evaluate
the effectiveness of the abstinence spending formulas,
and the administration consider changing how it implements
the law.
"Lack of clarity in the ABC guidance has created
challenges for a majority of focus country teams,"
the GAO reported. "For example, although the guidance
restricts activities promoting condom use, it does not
clearly delineate the difference between condom education
and condom promotion, causing uncertainty over whether
certain condom-related activities are permissible,"
the report said.
The GAO also said the administration has gone beyond the
abstinence requirement for a major new account Congress
created to fight AIDS, mostly in 15 target countries with
high rates of the disease. Congress said a third of those
prevention funds must go to abstinence and fidelity programs.
As to the GAO's finding that the approach is undermining
some anti-AIDS efforts, Dybul said, "There are always
challenges when you are changing things." He said U.S.
teams in some countries exceeded the minimum required
spending for abstinence because they found it was the
most effective strategy.
The Associated Press reported earlier this year that
the administration has handed out nearly one-quarter
of its AIDS grants to religious groups, and has been
aggressively pursuing new church partners that often
emphasize prevention through abstinence and fidelity over
condoms.
Dybul said Congress, which increased Bush's overall
AIDS money requests, allocated 12 percent less than
Bush asked for the 15 target countries. That extra money
could have beefed up all prevention strategies instead
of forcing teams on the ground to make tradeoffs, he said.
The report re-ignited debate over how best to fight HIV/AIDS.
Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., said it "demonstrates the
Bush administration's willingness to make AIDS prevention
policy a political plaything in their ongoing effort to
appease the radical right."
Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., defended the administration's
approach, saying the report was "politically biased."
GAO report author David Gootnick said the nonpartisan
agency used standards that were "methodologically rigorous,
vetted extensively," including a standard set of questions
and evaluations for U.S. field workers.
The GAO surveyed the 15 target countries, plus five others
that receive more than $10 million in U.S. help to fight the
epidemic.
U.S. teams in 17 countries told the GAO that meeting the
spending requirements for abstinence and fidelity
"challenges their ability to develop interventions that
are responsive to local epidemiology and social norms."
While Bush's AIDS program also includes unprecedented
spending for treatment and care, the GAO report focused
on prevention.
The administration follows a congressional recommendation
that 20 percent of the overall AIDS money be reserved for
preventing HIV/AIDS, and mandates a third of prevention
money emphasize abstinence until marriage and faithfulness
to one partner. The rest goes to condoms and efforts to
reduce mother-to-child transmission and intravenous transmission.
The Bush administration refined the mandate to require
that half of all prevention money be reserved for programs
against sexual transmission of HIV, with two-thirds of
that amount for abstinence and fidelity.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., in a letter Tuesday to
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said those
abstinence messages don't always work in countries
with high rates of sexual transmission.
"The effect may well be to misallocate funds in
countries with fast-growing HIV epidemics driven
primarily by intravenous drug use or commercial sex,
such as Russia and India," Waxman said.
_____________________________________________________
"Be fruitful and multiply."
.
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