HIV/AIDS Round two
Rita Mae Brown once in Venus Envy wrote that “The Reagan and Bush [the first] administrations will be remembered throughout history as having the chance to stop an epidemic from taking place and refusing to do so because the ‘right people’ were dying.” This claim was reiterated just recently by Andrew Miller in New York’s Gay City News when he wrote, “Reagan's conservative credentials would have allowed him to introduce sanity and scientific reason into the early days of the AIDS crisis. Instead, the Gipper played a moralistic game of political football. As a result, funding for treatment, research and prevention was needlessly delayed or denied and tens of thousands of Americans died prematurely -- nearly 30,000 by the end of his presidency."
However, if the generation of Reagan and George the 1st will be known for the fact that they allowed the world to fall into the global crisis that has become the AIDS epidemic, then the legacy of Bush 2 and the generation that accompanied him will be that we had the virus on the run and then became lazy, let down our guard, and allowed the infection rates to once again spiral out of control. Only now that difference is it’s not just the “right people” that are dying. It’s no longer just gay men and drug users. Over half of all new infections in America are occurring in single straight women under the age of 30.
Over 25 million people have died since the epidemic started in the early Eighties; over 5 million of those deaths occurred last year alone. We are no longer in the dark about AIDS: we know what causes it and we know what prevents it, and yet that number of new infections are once again on the rise. Two main factors are responsible for this spike in infection rates, and ironically the first of these factors is the advances in AIDS medicine: the new AIDS “cocktails” that extend the life of those infected with HIV as well as raising the quality of the years. Don’t get me wrong; those drugs are a God-send, but they do not cure HIV/AIDS and they do not keep those infected from transmitting the disease to their sexual partners. Currently, 40 million people are living with either HIV or AIDS, and over 5 million new infections were reported last year. AIDS is not over, and it is still every bit as deadly as it has always been.
The second cause for the rise in new infections has nothing to do with the disease itself and everything to do with politics. The religious right is playing games with people’s lives, and it has got to stop. While abstinence is a sure-fire way not to contract the disease, abstinence-only education shows a strong correlation with AIDS infections. One recent example has occurred in Thailand. Once pointed to as the great success in the fight against HIV/AIDS, the country has cut his prevention programs, and condom use is no longer being advocated as the best way to prevent spreading the disease. As a result, new infections have spiked in young people. By switching from a rhetoric of safe sex to one of no sex, in a matter of only a few years the country has gone from one of the world’s greatest successes to a nation in jeopardy of being overrun with the disease, yet the Bush administration is determined to send America down the same road.
In his State of the Union address, George the 2nd pledged millions of dollars to fight the AIDS epidemic in Africa, but he didn’t tell the American people that that money would not be given to the countries that are at the most at need. Instead, it will only be given to those who will spend the money on abstinence-only education. Here at home he has consistently slashed funding for any prevention program that even mentions safe sex. Even if the programs focuses 90% of their time to abstinence and 10% to condom use, the program has been deemed unfit for funding. In doing so, another generation of young people are being denied the vital education they need to protect themselves from this deadly disease. Religious conservatism of a few is risking the lives of an entire population who were never allowed to make informed decisions for themselves.
The Bush’s policy is akin to a parent putting a pool in their back yard and telling the kids never to go near it. No matter how many times the parents reiterate their warning, sooner or later the children will find their way into the back yard. Isn’t it best that before they do, they are taught to swim?
However, if the generation of Reagan and George the 1st will be known for the fact that they allowed the world to fall into the global crisis that has become the AIDS epidemic, then the legacy of Bush 2 and the generation that accompanied him will be that we had the virus on the run and then became lazy, let down our guard, and allowed the infection rates to once again spiral out of control. Only now that difference is it’s not just the “right people” that are dying. It’s no longer just gay men and drug users. Over half of all new infections in America are occurring in single straight women under the age of 30.
Over 25 million people have died since the epidemic started in the early Eighties; over 5 million of those deaths occurred last year alone. We are no longer in the dark about AIDS: we know what causes it and we know what prevents it, and yet that number of new infections are once again on the rise. Two main factors are responsible for this spike in infection rates, and ironically the first of these factors is the advances in AIDS medicine: the new AIDS “cocktails” that extend the life of those infected with HIV as well as raising the quality of the years. Don’t get me wrong; those drugs are a God-send, but they do not cure HIV/AIDS and they do not keep those infected from transmitting the disease to their sexual partners. Currently, 40 million people are living with either HIV or AIDS, and over 5 million new infections were reported last year. AIDS is not over, and it is still every bit as deadly as it has always been.
The second cause for the rise in new infections has nothing to do with the disease itself and everything to do with politics. The religious right is playing games with people’s lives, and it has got to stop. While abstinence is a sure-fire way not to contract the disease, abstinence-only education shows a strong correlation with AIDS infections. One recent example has occurred in Thailand. Once pointed to as the great success in the fight against HIV/AIDS, the country has cut his prevention programs, and condom use is no longer being advocated as the best way to prevent spreading the disease. As a result, new infections have spiked in young people. By switching from a rhetoric of safe sex to one of no sex, in a matter of only a few years the country has gone from one of the world’s greatest successes to a nation in jeopardy of being overrun with the disease, yet the Bush administration is determined to send America down the same road.
In his State of the Union address, George the 2nd pledged millions of dollars to fight the AIDS epidemic in Africa, but he didn’t tell the American people that that money would not be given to the countries that are at the most at need. Instead, it will only be given to those who will spend the money on abstinence-only education. Here at home he has consistently slashed funding for any prevention program that even mentions safe sex. Even if the programs focuses 90% of their time to abstinence and 10% to condom use, the program has been deemed unfit for funding. In doing so, another generation of young people are being denied the vital education they need to protect themselves from this deadly disease. Religious conservatism of a few is risking the lives of an entire population who were never allowed to make informed decisions for themselves.
The Bush’s policy is akin to a parent putting a pool in their back yard and telling the kids never to go near it. No matter how many times the parents reiterate their warning, sooner or later the children will find their way into the back yard. Isn’t it best that before they do, they are taught to swim?
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