Archive for the ‘aids’ tag
“Reverse Prostitution” #
A fascinating idea is being implemented in Tanzania:
The $1.8m trial – to be launched this year – will counsel 3,000 men and women aged 15-30 in southern rural Tanzania over three years, paying them on condition that periodic laboratory test results prove they have not contracted sexually transmitted infections.
The proposed payments of $45 equate to a quarter of annual income for some participants.
The programme, jointly funded by the World Bank, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Population Reference Bureau and the Spanish Impact Evaluation Fund, marks an important step in the fight to tackle Aids, which claims 2m lives a year.
(via Passport)
AIDS Conspiracy Theories #
Among the false beliefs about the disease, this one seems the most unusual:
Among the most popular, and pernicious, conspiracy theories is that AIDS isn’t caused by a virus at all. Peter Duesberg, a biology professor at University of California-Berkeley, has argued that drugs and promiscuity are the principal causes of the disease in the United States. He attributes AIDS in Africa to malnutrition.
President Bush and Compassion #
As we eagerly anticipate President Bush’s final State of the Union (right?), Jacob Weisberg takes an interesting look at whatever happened to “compassionate conservatism.”
To this day, Mr. Bush’s compassionate conservatism has never vanished completely. Some of Mr. Bush’s signature programs, like his initiative to provide AIDS drugs to Africans, have had meaningful effects. But others haven’t lived up to their rhetorical promise. What about that special training for defense lawyers in capital cases (pledged in his 2005 State of the Union address)? The initiative to encourage mentoring for at-risk children (2006)? The grants to extend health insurance coverage (2007)? Such gestures tended to linger in the air only as long as it took Mr. Bush to make them.