I think I’ve figured it out. There’s something in public health called the “prevention paradox”: measures of disease prevention that offer great benefits to populations at large (such as fluoridation of water sources, wearing seatbelts, lifestyle changes, smallpox vaccinations, etc) offer little benefit or personal incentive to individuals.

But research shows that health education geared toward individuals (counseling on reducing salt intake for hypertension, exercise for diabetes, etc) are less effective when geared only toward individuals and/or used in a short-term approach. People are motivated to act for immediate gain and substantial personal benefits, but “the medical motivation for health education is inherently weak. Their health next year is not likely to be much better if they accept our advice or if they reject it. Much more powerful as motivators for health education are the social rewards of enhanced self-esteem and social approval.” (Geoffrey Rose, Sick Individuals and Sick Populations.)

Physicians also prefer individualized health education because with population interventions (such as anti-smoking campaigns), their success rates are low and results take a long time to achieve.

The US is such an individual-centric society that people have no cultural reason to care about population health as a whole. Most Americans do not see that universal access to healthcare means that problems are detected and treated early (which is less costly), and that sometimes preventive medicine can encourage life-saving behavior change. That the person going into the ER for stomach pain because s/he does not have health insurance is costing the taxpayer literally thousands more dollars than s/he would if s/he’d gone to a primary care physician.

Nor do they understand the concept of herd immunity- if a large proportion of a population is immune to or vaccinated against a particular disease, the likelihood that one individual will get that disease is far less.

The focus on the individual and the apathy toward the well-being of communities and populations is by no means restricted to health alone. The same can be said about the current financial crisis. Individuals who borrowed more than they could pay back, and their unscrupulous lenders have created a global downward spiral of hundreds of economies, with the bottom billion hit the hardest.

I find it ironic and deeply saddening that 30 million more people have been pushed into starvation thus far due to the financial crisis while bankers are taking hefty bonuses and governments are bailing out businesses that were failing even before the crash (GM, Chrysler, etc…)

Wenn es angeblich nicht auf die Größe ankommt – worauf dann?
„Er steht einfach nicht auf dich“ – Warum ist Klartext so schwer?
Kann ich durch Petting schwanger werden?

… sind einige der brennenden Fragen, die – nicht nur – Jugendliche interessieren.

Beim Basisworkshop – Wochenende zum/r Sexualpädagogen/in am 28./29.3.2009 gibt es die Grundlagen zu:

-Kommunikation über Sexualität und Partnerschaft
-Biologische & psychologische Entwicklung bei Jugendlichen
-Schwangerschaft und Verhütung
-Rechtliches: Was ist erlaubt? Reaktionsmöglichkeiten auf sexuellen Missbrauch etc.
-Sexuelle Identität, Hinterfragen von Klischees
-Sexualität in den Massenmedien, Vorbildwirkung
-Planung & Durchführung von Workshops, Auswahl von passenden Methoden

Sexpädition – steig jetzt ein beim Aufklärungsprojekt von Studierenden für Jugendliche! Setz dein Wissen aus dem Studium zusammen mit einem engagierten Team um.

Komm zum Infonachmittag am 10. März von 16-18 Uhr im Raum V134 (Vorstufengebäude der Uni) um Details zum Ausbildungs – Wochenende und zum Projekt zu erfahren, in die Methoden reinzuschnuppern…

Bei Fragen schreib an: raphaela.rainer@edu.uni-klu.ac.at

maybe it will get published... here's hoping! :)


Sir,

I find it inaccurate to call President Obama's decision to end the Global Gag Rule, an "order... ending the prohibition on sending aid to international organisations that provide abortion." (Brief Encounter, January 31st). Obama's decision does not change the fact that US tax-payers' dollars cannot be used to provide abortions overseas. The
legislation, first enacted by Ronald Reagan, rejected by Clinton and reinstated by Bush, prohibited US family planning assistance to organizations that use non-US funds to perform abortions (even in countries where it is legal), provide counseling and referrals for abortion, and lobby to liberalize abortion laws.

None of these restrictions would be permitted within the United States, where abortion is legal. Yet US ideologues had no qualms about denying poor women the right to decide when and if to carry out a pregnancy. Each year there are 19 million unsafe abortions, most of which could be prevented if poor women had access to voluntary family
planning including contraception, sex education, and the ability to prevent unwanted pregnancies. In addition, women with fewer births are able to invest more in their children's nutrition and education-- resulting in healthier, more productive contributors to society.

Many of the organizations that lost their funding were unable to provide other life-saving services such as maternal and infant healthcare, poverty reduction, and HIV prevention. For example, the United Nations Population Fund lost its US contribution of $244 million over seven years, based on a spurious claim of collusion with the Chinese government in coerced sterilizations. This contributed to 74,000 deaths from unsafe abortion globally each year, even though Bush's own hand-picked State Department team visited China and found no evidence that UNFPA participated in such programs; and, indeed, that its programs were "a force for good." Obama's move to restore reproductive freedoms to women will surely reduce global demand for abortion and improve overall population health.



(PS- the picture of all the old white dudes is from bush's second day in office, when he signed the global gag rule back into its miserable existence.)

(Written for SAWNET, http://sawnet.org/books/reviews.php?Aids+Sutra)



Today there are approximately 3 million Indians living with HIV and AIDS, a number that masks the human faces behind a disease that has been reviled and misunderstood as the worst plague in human history. A disease often considered to afflict only those regarded as the dredges of society, AIDS has the potential both to expose the dark underbelly of society, and also to inspire triumphs of human compassion and perseverance.
AIDS Sutra, funded by the Gates Foundation, is a compilation of 16 vibrant essays about Indians living with HIV by some of South Asia’s most gifted authors, including Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, and Kiran Desai. Several of the essays are narrated directly from the authors’ home communities; others are the fruition of their travels to the vastly different regions of India.

Siddharth Deb’s poignant account, “The Lost Generation of Manipur,” brings him to a remote corner of India bereft of employment opportunities and constantly on edge due to communal violence. Uncontrolled injecting drug use in the region puts young people of working age especially at risk for HIV infection.

Salman Rushdie’s piece on the politics and culture of the hijra (intersexed and/or transgender) community is a concise account of a population that defies society´s common [mis]perceptions around gender and HIV risk. Rushdie interviews a transgender AIDS activist named Laxmi, who lives in a constant duality of gender- going as a man by day and living with her parents, and transforming into a woman at night and on the weekends. Her advocacy on behalf of this distinct community in India has helped to distinguish hijras as a third gender- with different needs and challenges than men who have sex with men.

Other stories included in the book examine the lives of truck drivers, sex workers, and devadasis, women traditionally given to god, and nowadays women who choose or are forced into sex work as a means of income generation. In Sunil Gangopadhyay’s essay, “Return to Sonagacchi,” the author returns home to Kolkata to compose a compelling account of the lives of sex workers in Sonagachhi, narrating both the deprivation they face and also their power as an organized movement fighting for their rights as sex workers to safety, health services, education for their children, freedom from police persecution, and dignity.

Bill and Melinda Gates give the anthology’s introduction, and its insightful forward is written by the Nobel Prize-winning economist and author of Development as Freedom, Amartya Sen. Sen revolutionized the traditional economic paradigm by asserting that development is not simply about increasing per capita income, but rather “a process of expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy.” His examination of the economic effects of AIDS in India is nuanced in its consideration of both the beneficial impact of Indian pharmaceuticals in producing affordable antiretroviral drugs for much of the world, and the irony that income disparity in India prevents the majority of Indians living with HIV from accessing treatment, quality medical facilities, shelter, employment opportunities, and community support.

Sen argues that stigma is the primary fuel of the epidemic in India, where widespread ignorance pervades about how HIV is—and is not—transmitted. Among young Indians just reaching working age, knowledge how HIV is spread is dismally low at 25% of the population according to UNAIDS (20% comprehensive knowledge among women and 36% among men). Because many Indians still believe that HIV can be transmitted through touch, sharing food, or through aerosol transmission, Indians living with HIV face discrimination in schools and workplaces, ostracization, rejection from their families, and in many cases, violence and even death.

India’s uncomfortable and often times paradoxical relationship with sex and sexuality is often at the root of ignorance and discrimination against HIV, with 87% of new infections in India occurring through unprotected sexual intercourse each year according to India’s National AIDS Control Organization. Despite an ancient culture rich in celebration of natural human sexuality, imperial-era taboos surrounding sex continue to create a stifling conservatism that limits access to scientific information about sexually transmitted infections, reproductive health, and the rights of women and sexual minorities.

In Amit Chaudhuri’s essay, “Healing,” he remarks that “The troubling ambiguity of sex through history— the fact that it bestows life and pleasure, and also, in a way that can’t be entirely explained by morality, confuses and shames— have converged in a new way upon this disease.” His interviews with Alka Desphpande, an AIDS researcher and physician in India’s first AIDS ward, reveal the challenges faced even by the medical community in becoming educated about HIV. Large numbers of Indian health care workers still believe that HIV is transmitted by touch, and widespread denial of treatment and discrimination against people living with HIV is common.

The first essay “Mister X Versus Hospital Y” by Nikita Lalwani tells the story of a Dr. Tokugha who is infected with HIV and becomes an important activist when his results are disclosed to his family (and bride-to-be’s family) before he himself is made aware of his status, just days before the wedding. His lawsuit against the hospital’s breach of his privacy sparked controversial debate and the release of his name in newspapers all across India. The court ruled against him, “decreeing that the hospital’s release of the information to the minister without his consent had ‘saved the life’ of Toku’s proposed fiancée. The essay forces us to consider the complexities behind forced disclosure of one’s HIV status. Not only was Dr. “Toku”’s right to self-disclose taken away from him, the judge tacked on a devastating addition to the ruling, that suspended the right of HIV positive people to marry. The laudable human rights organization, The Lawyers’ Collective, fought for years to restore this basic human right to people living with HIV, succeeding in 2002. Since then, Dr. Toku has become a prominent physician in the field, and goes above and beyond by arranging matches between people living with HIV.

Discrimination and national legislation intersect most brutally in India with the penal code provision 377 that makes homosexuality a criminal offense. Drafted in 1860 during British Rule, the anachronistic law fines and imprisons Indians caught in the act of sodomy and even oral sex for between ten years and a lifetime in jail. The law has served to drive homosexuality “underground” where men having unprotected sex with men cannot be reached for HIV awareness raising, sexual health services, STI screening, or recourse for police persecution and demanding of bribes.

One story included in the collection was strikingly disappointing— to the point of giving offense. Shobhaa De’s “When AIDS Came Home” reveals the author’s ignorant, discriminatory and classist lack of understanding of HIV and AIDS. Her account of how her driver becomes infected with HIV and gradually dies from AIDS is peppered with comments about her “repulsion” that he had spent so much time with her children, speculations about his involvement with sex workers and his sexuality, and self-congratulatory accolades when she provided occasional money for a doctor or medicine.

De’s piece examines her misconceptions about AIDS and vaguely suggests that she has seen the error in her was (perhaps simply because it would not be politically correct to admit otherwise), but still fails to include what lessons she has learned. Indeed, to conclude her story Shobhaa marvels that “Although they are such an intimate part of our lives, how little we really know about the people who work for us… it took Shankar’s death to see him as a human.” She concludes by lying to her children and telling them that the driver was infected through a blood transfusion because the reality that many men purchase sex is too shocking to bear.

By far the most thought-provoking inclusion in the anthology, Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi’s “Hello, Darling,” diverges from the book’s overall focus on more “marginalized” populations of sex workers, drug users and truckers, to recount the life experiences with HIV of an upper-class homosexual film director whose pseudonym is given as “Murad.” Openly flamboyant, driven to success, and yet still slow to “come out” about his homosexuality, and later, HIV status, Murad escapes the confines of Bombay and moves to New York City. He is unable to move in the local film circuit and returns to Bombay years later, where he eventually succumbs to AIDS.

Shanghvi’s piece is particularly well-researched and deeply-felt; his account considers early chronicles of the impact of AIDS on art and artists in Edmund White’s “Esthetics and Loss,” and the strange phenomenon of how AIDS “got noticed,” as explained in Urvashi Vaid’s “Virtual Equality,” in which she observes “how the passing of an entire generation from AIDS helped give rise to the modern idea of homosexuality: thousands of men had to die, in fact, to have to be seen as alive in the first place.” Shanghvi’s inclusion was particularly important and contrasted sharply with De’s story. “Hello, Darling” should serve as a wake-up call to elites believing in their infallibility, since the risk behaviors that propel the spread of HIV in India are by no means limited to lower socioeconomic echelons of society.

Overall, the anthology is an important, moving, and transformative read. Each story is relatively brief and gives a taste of the authors’ diverse and prolific literary talents. Some tales, such as De’s, are clearly geared toward upper class Indians who are beginning to understand the complexities of the AIDS epidemic in India. Still others delve into economic, political and human rights aspects of the disease. Till now, literature and artistic works on AIDS in India have been limited and relatively unknown. AIDS Sutra gives voice to communities and individuals that have been destroyed, silenced, affected and transformed by AIDS in a jarring and yet deeply meaningful manner.

Wow. I was out of town for a couple days and come back to find Obama taking the lead, with Hillary's campaign manager and deputy manager resigned! McCain has promised no new taxes for his entire campaign, this just as the recession is looming, and the taxes in April will bring in less revenue than in years. The sub-prime mortgage crisis was not just a poor people's phenomenon- this type of behavior, of borrowing far more than one could ever expect to pay off, pervades the highest levels of government!


I have mixed feelings about MoveOn.org, but I really admire their new campaign "Iraq/Recession". They have a nice new email action that allows you to easily and automatically write an op-ed to your local newspaper (they send it, you write it) making the tie between the American recession and the Iraq spending. (A tie that is obvious, but few people actually realize!)


Some interesting facts:

"As of today, we've spent over $495 billion in Iraq.1 With the economy in the tank, think about what that money could do here at home: Cover millions of kids who don't have insurance, or help folks who're losing their jobs and homes.

Instead, it's supporting a failed occupation in Iraq.

More and more Americans are making the connection between the billions we've spent over there and the crumbling economy here at home. In fact, a new AP poll shows that most Americans think ending the war is the best way to help the economy.2 But pundits still talk about the war and the economy as two unrelated things.

* The recession is going to force states to cut back their budgets. Most likely, the cuts are going to affect the services that working families need and depend on.3
* Meanwhile, the war is costing Americans more than $338 million a day. 4 That money could be spent to help out the folks who're hurting most now. For less than what we're spending on the war, we could pay for affordable housing for hundreds of thousands of families, health care for children, or scholarships to help folks pay for education. 5
* Gas prices are close to double what they were before the war began. The cost of oil is still hovering around $100 barrel. 6
* We're borrowing $343 million every day to finance the war in Iraq. 7 Our skyrocketing debt will be a bigger and bigger drag on the economy—slowing recovery and burdening future generations.


Write an Op-Ed

If thousands of us write, we can get the media to stop ignoring the connection between the war and the recession. The opinion pages are the most widely read pages in the newspaper, so we can also make sure voters—who are growing increasingly concerned about the economy—know that any candidate who wants to stay in Iraq has no plan for the economy."

Gone are the days of boinking creatures on the head in Super Mario
Brothers. Today's popular games are all about gruesome murder and
violence.

I had the lovely experience of playing Halo, a video game which,
thankfully, I am terrible at, which involves killing people with guns,
lasers, nail-spewing killing machines, and other highly effective and
incredibly scary weapons. When you kill someone, your entire
controller shakes and vibrates much like, I imagine, a real machine
gun would do.

I can understand why this game is so popular with soldiers in Iraq and
Afghanistan. It must help them to dehumanize their colonial subjects,
and normalize the experience of killing. I can also see why it's
popular with American teens, who are inundated with graphic violence
through movies, television, and news networks. Ultimately it will lead
them to sign up, to "die for their country" and maybe kill off a few
Muslims here and there to boot.

To the point-

It seems the Church thinks this is a wonderful way to attract young
people to the church, and, in their words, to promote "fellowship."

Whatever happened to "Thou Shalt Not Kill"? Is non-violence pass??


New York Times
NATIONAL | October 7, 2007


Thou Shalt Not Kill, Except in a Popular Video Game at Church
By MATT RICHTEL
Ministers and pastors desperate to reach young congregants are
using an unusual recruiting tool: the violent video game Halo.

Great news- New York has finally acknowledged that abstinence-only sex education may not be the best idea in a state with rising HIV infection rates, teen pregnancy, and STIs.

Why are the Catholics still saying that giving young people condoms will increase "promiscuity" when numerous studies show that comprehensive sex education actually causes young people to delay first intercourse and to use condoms when they do have sex? (1)



New York Times: New York Just Says No to Abstinence Funding

NEW YORK REGION | September 21, 2007

By JENNIFER MEDINA
The decision puts New York in line with at least 10 other states
that have decided to forgo the federal money in recent years.


Excerpt:

"Dr. Daines's announcement came the same day that the New York Civil
Liberties Union, which opposes abstinence-only education, released a
report detailing the number of such programs in the state. The report
stated that roughly half of the groups teaching abstinence in the
state were religious groups and that the state had done almost nothing
to monitor them."

(NYCLU Report: http://www.nyclu.org/files/financing_ignorance_092007.pdf)
NYCLU Article: http://www.nyclu.org/node/1395




Calling Bush's teen education program on sex a failure, New York state
will forgo $3.7 million in federal aid

By CATHLEEN F. CROWLEY, Staff writer

First published: Friday, September 21, 2007

Excerpt:

"The Bush administration's abstinence-only program is an example of a
failed national health-care policy directive, based on ideology rather
than on sound scientific-based evidence," Health Commissioner Richard
Daines said Thursday.

..


The New York Catholic Conference, which represents New York's bishops,
called the administration's decision unfortunate.

"Most people would agree that teenagers are too young to be having
sex, therefore the consistent message to them ought to be that this is
a behavior that is undesirable and you should refrain from it," said
Dennis Poust, spokesman for the conference. "The idea of so-called
comprehensive sex education sounds OK at first blush, but what the
children are being taught is instruction in condom usage which leads
to promotion of sexual activity."

Nearly half of all New York teenagers have sex before graduating high
school, according to the 2005 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey from
the U.S. Census. In Albany County, 427 girls between 15 and 19 became
pregnant in 2004 and 199 had abortions, according to state health
department statistics."


Citation:
(1) UNAIDS, 1997. "Impact of HIV and Sexual Health Education on the Sexual Behaviour of Young People: A Review."

"Only three out of 53 studies that evaluated specific interventions found increases in sexual behaviour associated with sexual health education. Twenty-two reported that HIV and/or sexual health education either delayed the onset of sexual activity, reduced the number of partners, or reduced unplanned pregnancy and STD rates."

Yet again forcing the Surgeon General of the United States to be the mouthpiece for the Bush Administration's lies, a report calling for action on global health was suppressed by the administration because Carmona kept it a-political.

Steiger, with absolutely no qualifications in global health whatsoever, pulled the report because it did not laud the United States for its action against global health crises such as AIDS, TB and Malaria.

What is there to laud? The United States, the wealthiest country in the world, ranks last in the amount of money it spends on global health from among industrialized nations as a percentage of its GNP/ wealth. (Citation: USAID)

Congratulations to Carmona for speaking out about how his freedom of speech has been curtailed.



Bush Aide Blocked Report
Global Health Draft In 2006 Rejected for Not Being Political

By Christopher Lee and Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, July 29, 2007; Page A01

A surgeon general's report in 2006 that called on Americans to help tackle global health problems has been kept from the public by a Bush political appointee without any background or expertise in medicine or public health, chiefly because the report did not promote the administration's policy accomplishments, according to current and former public health officials.

The report described the link between poverty and poor health, urged the U.S. government to help combat widespread diseases as a key aim of its foreign policy, and called on corporations to help improve health conditions in the countries where they operate. A copy of the report was obtained by The Washington Post.

Three people directly involved in its preparation said its publication was blocked by William R. Steiger, a specialist in education and a scholar of Latin American history whose family has long ties to President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Since 2001, Steiger has run the Office of Global Health Affairs in the Department of Health and Human Services.

This is absolutely unbelievable! Bush pardoned Scooter Libby! Just look at the grin on his face- Justice evaded, one more time........

What is the lesson learned? Even if you're a diplomat and you question the Bush Adminstration's lies (by writing an op-ed that Iraq did not buy enriched Uranium from Niger), you and your family will be punished by the government. (They leaked the name of his wife, Valerie Wilson, for being an undercover CIA agent).

Bush is not pardoning Scooter, he's pardoning himself. With 18 months left in office, he can do whatever he wants pretty much, with no repercussion whatsoever.

Jesus now we've got the likes of Scooter Libby and Paris Hilton roaming free on the streets of America. Talk about dictatorships!


WASHINGTON | July 3, 2007

The great part of the new immigration bill that they are not mentioning- the lockup and die bit.

I thought after we put Japanese people in concentration camps in America in the 40s and 50s, we'd said goodbye to Nazi-style death camps? I guess not.



New Scrutiny as Immigrants Die in Custody
New York Times
By NINA BERNSTEIN
Published: June 26, 2007


[Excerpts:]

Sandra M. Kenley was returning home from her native Barbados in 2005 when she was swept into the United States’ fastest-growing form of incarceration, immigration detention.

...
Seven weeks later, Ms. Kenley died in a rural Virginia jail, where she had complained of not receiving medicine for high blood pressure. She was one of 62 immigrants to die in administrative custody since 2004, according to a new tally by Immigration and Customs Enforcement that counted many more deaths than the 20 previously known.
...
In the case of Ms. Kenley, a legal permanent resident of the United States for more than 30 years, detention interrupted her medical care for high blood pressure, a fibroid tumor and uterine bleeding. An autopsy attributed her death to an enlarged heart from chronic hypertensive disease. But a report by emergency medical services said that she had fallen from a top bunk, and that a cellmate had pounded on the door for 20 minutes before guards responded.
........

The inspector general in the Department of Homeland Security recently announced a “special review” of two deaths, including that of a Korean woman at a privately run detention center in Albuquerque. Fellow detainees told a lawyer that the woman, Young Sook Kim, had pleaded for medical care for weeks, but received scant attention until her eyes yellowed and she stopped eating.

Ms. Kim died of pancreatic cancer in federal custody on Sept. 11, 2005, a day after she was taken to a hospital.

“We spend $98 million annually to provide medical care for people in our custody,” Ms. Zuieback said. “Anybody who violates our national immigration law is going to get the same treatment by I.C.E. regardless of their medical condition.” (Jamie Zuieback, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security)

We're fighting two wars. We don't have enough troops, and they don't even have bullet proof vests or car armor. We definitely do not have enough Arabic translators, and what self-respecting person with Arab roots or Muslim would sign up to be a translator for the US anyway? How many Americans do you know who are fluent in Arabic?

Stephen Benjamin wrote an excellent Op-Ed in the NYtimes today. The military read through his instant messages and kicked them out for being gay. The other 68 heterosexual men's instant messages contained conversations about their sexual misconduct, mysoginistic comments, profanities, etc. They were not kicked out.

I bet some of them were the same types as the Abu Ghraib torturers whose sexual misconduct was a grotesque aberration. But Bush and his cronies defend torture. How on earth can the Bible be against homosexuality but pro Torture?

When will this country get its priorities straight?

Don’t Ask, Don’t Translate
By STEPHEN BENJAMIN
Published: June 8, 2007

"In response to difficult recruiting prospects, the Army has already taken a number of steps, lengthening soldiers’ deployments to 15 months from 12, enlisting felons and extending the age limit to 42. Why then won’t Congress pass a bill like the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, which would repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell”? The bipartisan bill, by some analysts’ estimates, could add more than 41,000 soldiers — all gay, of course."

Lou Dobbs, television show host of “Lou Dobbs Tonight” and commentator of the Early Show, is drumming up anti-immigrant, racist hysteria by spreading false data that accuses immigrants of spreading disease in America.

Reflecting the current widespread trend of the government/media to create and flame public fears about non-whites and immigrants, the audience for his program has grown 72 percent since 2003.

Lou Dobbs and his peons stated multiple times that there had been 7,000 cases of leprosy in this country over the previous 3 years, compared to 900 cases over the past 40 years.

Interestingly, according to the NYTimes,
"When Lesley Stahl of “60 Minutes” sat down to interview Mr. Dobbs on camera, she mentioned the report and told him that there didn’t seem to be much evidence for it.

'Well, I can tell you this,' he replied. 'If we reported it, it’s a fact.'"

HOWEVER- official leprosy statistics show about 7,000 diagnosed cases — but that’s over the last 30 years, not the last three.

Sadly any white racist can spin lies as truth and before you know it, half of America accepts it as truth. We can only pray that Lou Dobbs soon goes the way of Jerry Falwell..........


Source:
Truth, Fiction and Lou Dobbs, NEW YORK TIMES

By DAVID LEONHARDT
Published: May 30, 2007

LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!

Bush's appointee to US Global AIDS Coordinator Randall Tobias resigns after being caught on a list of clients of a famous high-end brothel/ escort service.

Tobias is the main man responsible for trying to get all aid orgs seeking US funds or partnering with orgs that receive US funds, to sign a pledge opposing commercial sex work (cuz that's going to do a hell of a lot!).

Who put the H in hypocrisy.............. the United States of America!


Written by one of my heroes............


Tobias Latest Evidence of Bush Hypocrisy
RH Reality Check
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2007/04/30/bush-official-randall-tobias-resigns
Jodi Jacobson , CHANGE on
April 30, 2007 - 12:00pm


Excerpts:

....
In the far-rights' anti-science, always fiction world, you should never have sex, unless you
are a married heterosexual willing to do so only at risk of getting pregnant. Others—sexually active unmarrieds, gay, lesbian and transgender persons, and anyone else outside the "norm"—are subject to reprogramming. So since the Bush Administration wants a video cam in every bedroom and uterus (and I have no idea whether Tobias was taping his masseuses but that is another story), it is fair to ask if these guys are practicing what they preach. Apparently not.

...

Abstinence is big in U.S. global AIDS policy, which one colleague dubbed the
"Americans for Stopping Sex in Africa League." Billions of dollars have been
spent in a fruitless effort at home and abroad to spread a hyper-moralistic
and ideological message to everyone and sundry. Programs teaching people
sexual negotiation and safer sex methods have become as scarce as rubbers in
Uganda. Even sex workers in Asia and Africa are being told to abstain.
(Don't ask me.....it's in the program guides.)


.......... He has repeatedly testified before Congress supporting these policies, regularly using faulty data to support his claims. Under the "ABC" policy as developed under Tobias' watch, some 11 million people in sub-Saharan Africa have been subject to abstinence-only-until marriage programs, receiving no information, training, or methods to
practice safer sex, despite the fact that unprotected sex is responsible for 80 percent of new infections in that region. Condoms have been re-stigmatized and in some programs paid for by your tax dollars teens actually are told they will go to hell for having sex.

...
In a saner world, the U.S. government would not be known for its fundamentalist
"tighty-whities-in-a-twist" approach to sex.

But we don't live in that world. In our world, people with wealth, money,
and power get away with "special massages," they make unrealistic rules for
other people and set their own for themselves. And those at greatest risk of
life-threatening infections and engaged in a fundamental daily life struggle
to survive are punished in the interest of moralism. Give me some real
science fiction any day.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2070680,00.html


Another outrageous example of racial discrimination and profiling. Maybe US officials should recall the past century of imperialism, subjugation, emasculation, and robbery of natural resources in predominately Muslim countries if it's still wondering "why they hate us"





US 'wants British Pakistanis to have entry visas'


Matt Weaver
Wednesday May 2, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

The American government wants to impose travel restrictions on British citizens of Pakistani origin because of concerns about terrorism, according to a report today.
---

An excellent posting on Kaletra (Lopinavir (ABT-378), an antiretroviral of the protease inhibitor class, a component of combination therapy to treat HIV/AIDS.

Abbott is working hard to ensure that people living with AIDS in Thailand are charged as much as possible for the drug, and that Thailand cannot produce affordable generic versions, even though Thailand has the legal right to do so according to international law.

In an incredibly child-like and coercive response, Abbott has pulled 7 new lifesaving drugs from the Thai market's registration process..

--

Comment: The eight deadly lies of Big Pharma
Brook K Baker
*************

[Mods note: below is a comment by Brook Baker and responds to some of the statements of pharmaceutical companies.

Please send us more responses. Thanks]
**************************************


As Thailand issues more compulsory licences for AIDS and heart medicines that are compliant with the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and Thailand's laws, the multinational drug industry and its allies are unleashing an ever more strident public disinformation campaign.

Lie No-1: Mellisa Brotz, a spokeswoman for Abbott Industries: "We do not view [the compulsory licence on Kaletra] legal or in the best interest of patients."

Truth: Thailand's compulsory licence on Kaletra is lawful in every respect: (1) it is a fully TRIPS-compliant Article 31(b) licence issued on valid public health grounds and for government, non-commercial use, which requires no advance negotiation with the patent holder; (2) it is fully complaint with Section 51 of the Thai Patent Act, which directly authorises government, non-commercial use licenses without prior negotiation; and (3) it sets a royalty at .5 per cent of the sale price, which royalty is appealable by the affected patent holder. Although drug companies complain the loudest that Thailand has failed to engage in prior negotiation, in fact, the record shows that Thailand has engaged in many fruitless negotiations with the drug industry for the past two years.

Lie No-2: Roger Bates, American Enterprise Institute: "It is generally understood that compulsory licences should be confined to 'public health crises, including those relating to HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other epidemics,' which represent a 'national emergency or other circumstances of extreme urgency'."

Truth: This assertion is the most widely circulated and most repeated misrepresentation that Big Pharma has propagated. The Doha Declaration of 2001 is exquisitely clear that, "each member has the right to grant compulsory licences and the freedom to determine the grounds upon which such licences are granted". Although there are special rules for emergencies that permit expedited procedures for granting a licence, the right to issue compulsory licences is not limited to public-health emergencies.

Teera Chakajnarodom, president of Thailand's Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers' Association, takes the alleged emergency rule and raises it one degree higher: "The law allows such actions with pharmaceutical products only in cases of extreme national emergencies, or during wartime."

Lie No-3: Teera again: "After the company does 10 years of research, and then suddenly the Thai government would like to impose the compulsory licence, taking away their property, their assets."

Truth: Patents are not "property" in the traditional sense - they are government-granted rights that are intended to balance the interests of innovators and the public at large, and which are granted by governments with many express and implied conditions, including the right to issue compulsory licences. Governments around the world, including the US, have issued thousands of compulsory licences since the late nineteenth century, including on pharmaceutical products. Moreover, Thailand had its compulsory licence law on the books when all three companies, Merck, Abbott, and Sanofi-Aventis, filed their patent claims in Thailand.

Lie No-4: Khun Teera again: "Everything is negotiable."

Truth: For monopoly-based drug companies, everything isn't negotiable. Abbott has flatly refused for nearly six months to lower its mid-tier price for Kaletra. Moreover, even when negotiating deeper discount prices, drug companies frequently extract promises that countries will refrain from seeking other cheaper sources of supply. In this context, drug companies are mainly interested in preventing generic competition.

Paradoxically, in pursuing the generic-freeze-out option, drug companies will occasionally give concessions to bigger middle-income countries that "make the market" even though they would not do so for smaller and poorer countries like Guatemala.

Lie No-5: Harvey Bale, director-general of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Associations: "Compulsory licensing can be a route to commercial abuse."

Truth: Monopolies and excessive pricing are not commercial abuse, but competition and lower prices are - go figure. For the hugely rich, R&D drug industry (more than 90 per cent of the global pharmaceutical market) to complain about commercial abuse by generic producers (less than 10 per cent of the global pharmaceutical market) is deeply ironic.

A particular form of this complaint has been asserted by Pharma apologists Roger Bates and Ronald Cass. These two industry-sponsored pundits complain that licenses might eventually be granted to Thailand's own publicly owned, profit-making pharmaceutical company, the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation (GPO). They assert that this will be a form of cheating because production by the GPO will create a commercial advantage to domestic producers, who might thereafter become regional suppliers to other countries.

Nothing in TRIPS prohibits granting licences to profit-making entities. Since Big Pharma has disinvested in developing countries' pharmaceutical capacity post-TRIPS, it makes sense for countries to increase their own capacity to meet domestic and regional needs for essential medicines.

Lie No-6: Harvey Bale: "Compulsory licensing can ... put patients at risk." Merck, Abbott, and Sanofi-Aventis also warn that overriding patents risks jeopardising quality.

In terms of product quality, Bale roll outs out another old chestnut - "generics are inferior". He neglects to mention that multiple generic versions of efavirenz manufactured in India have already received pre-qualification at the WHO. Although it is true that the Thai Government Pharmaceutical Organisation has not yet received WHO-pre-qualification on its first-line ARVs, it is building a good manufacturing practices manufacturing plant after which it will surely meet global standards.

Lie No-7: All of the sources from Big Pharma previously quoted have said that compulsory licences will reduce incentives for innovation.

Truth: All of Asia (except Japan) and all of Africa comprise only 5.1 per cent of the global pharmaceutical market, according to Information Management Group.

Even though low- and middle-income markets are growing faster than developed country markets, drug companies continue to make the vast bulk of their profits from sales in the US, Canada, Europe, and Japan, which collectively buy nearly 89 per cent of drugs by dollar volume. Drug companies always argue that compulsory licences interfere with their R&D incentives, but they never admit that developing countries' compulsory licences never affect their monopoly profits in rich country markets. How can South and Southeast Asia's infinitesimal share of the global market really affect R&D incentive?

Lie No-8: Abbott: "[Because] Thailand has chosen to break patents on a number of medicines, ignoring the patent system ... we've [lawfully] elected not to introduce new medicines."

Truth: As discussed above, Thailand has not ignored the patent system - it has used one of its important lawful flexibilities for licensing access to patented products and processes.

Moreover, instead of Thailand breaking the law, it is Abbott that has engaged in an unprecedented and probably illegal withdrawal from the Thai market, taking seven important medicines, including a heat-stable form of Kaletra, out of the drug registration process.

To withhold life-saving medicines from the market in retaliation for lawful use of lawful flexibilities is not only unjustifiable, it is abusive and unconscionable.


- Brook K Baker is a professor in The Programme on Human Rights and the Global Economy at Northeastern University's School of Law
(Published on 21 April 2007 in The Nation, Thailand)

Online at: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2007/04/21/opinion/opinion_30032324.php


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