AIDS Researcher: European and U.N. Anti-Abstinence Bias Will Cost Lives
by Mary Rettig
December 13, 2005
(AgapePress) - - A Harvard researcher who studied how Uganda cut its AIDS/HIV infection rate says the European Union is giving Africa bad advice on that topic. Led by the United Kingdom, the EU issued a statement for World AIDS Day on December 1, urging Africans not to listen to a message from the U.S. emphasizing abstinence to prevent spread of the AIDS virus. Dr. Edward Green says although that message came in reaction to a perceived shortage of condoms in Uganda, the EU and the United Nations apparently believe the U.S. is trying to force the African nation to bow to an abstinence-only agenda. But that idea, he asserts, is the result of a misunderstanding.
"I think how the story got started, I mean the factual part of it, is that a number of condoms were recalled because they were defective," Green explains. "This happened when Uganda got their supply of public sector condoms. It was not the usual source, and they were poor-quality condoms that then deteriorated, so they had to be recalled."
Also, the researcher contends, the EU and the UN are under the misguided impression that the abstinence focus in Uganda's AIDS prevention program comes from the Bush administration when, in fact, the Bush administration's model for AIDS prevention comes from Uganda. As a result, the Europeans are asking for broader ideas to fight AIDS but are, in reality, promoting a narrow message, the doctor points out.
"All the EU wants to promote is condoms and other contraceptives and drugs and testing," Green asserts, "and what Uganda did was all of the above, plus strong components of trying to influence people's sexual behavior in the direction of safer and less risky." Obviously, he adds, "ABC" -- a combination of emphasis on Abstinence, Being faithful, and using Condoms -- "is broader than 'C' alone" for preventing AIDS.
Green says the EU wants to push things like combating poverty and empowering women to prevent the spread of the deadly sexually transmitted disease, but he insists that none of those efforts have made any marked improvement in reducing the rates of infection. And when governments change from the "ABC" model to just emphasizing "C" in their other social programs, he predicts AIDS/HIV infection rates will only increase.
Mary Rettig, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
