BUSH WATCH...CONDOMS/AIDS

Bush On Condoms/AIDS

BUSH LIED ABOUT THE AIDS FUNDING HIS ADMINISTRATION IS PROVIDING, AS WELL AS ITS TIMING "Mr. Bush's other foreign aid initiative, announced in his State of the Union address, is $10 billion in new money to fight AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean over five years. But his budget falls short of that promise. He is proposing only a $550 million increase over the global AIDS money in this year's spending bill now in Congress. Since the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria would be an effective channel for the aid, there is no excuse for the initiative's leisurely start. Mr. Bush's 2004 budget for the Global Fund, $200 million, actually cuts in half what Congress is likely to do in 2003. Mr. Bush has also found part of the money for his AIDS programs by cutting nearly $500 million from child health, including vaccine programs. Child survival is the biggest loser in the foreign aid budget — a scandalous way to finance AIDS initiatives. With the budget dominated by defense spending and huge tax cuts for the wealthy, the White House should not be forcing the babies of Africa to pay for their parents' AIDS drugs." 2.17.03
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BUSH AIDS PLAN, LIKE SO MANY OF HIS PLANS, IS "SMOKE AND MIRRORS" "But for Bush's words to translate into an effective AIDS plan, the Administration will have to reverse course on a number of its policies. Of primary concern is the Administration's record of duplicity on AIDS funding. As Africa Action director Salih Booker points out, the White House uses "Arthur Andersen-style accounting methods, counting old money several times and using projections for sums that don't yet exist" when announcing "new" aid packages. Indeed, according to the Wall Street Journal, Bush's "budget for 2004 would reduce by about the same amount the funding that aides had said would be sought for a separate development-aid initiative for poor nations." Moreover, Bush's new funding is spread over five years and begins in 2004 with only a modest increase over prior levels--less than what was authorized by the Frist-Kerry bill, which passed the Senate last year only to be scuttled by the White House.

This isn't the first AIDS smoke-and-mirrors ploy from this Administration. In June Bush announced to great fanfare a $500 million initiative to reduce mother-to-child HIV transmission in Africa. But just weeks earlier he had personally intervened to reduce the mother-to-child funds in a bill sponsored by, of all people, Jesse Helms. The treatment-access group Health GAP reports that this initiative has yet to receive any funding and is tied up in budget negotiations.

Equally troubling is Bush's decision to bypass the multilateral Global Fund, instead earmarking 90 percent of new funding for bilateral aid agreements with fourteen African and Caribbean countries. Bush's announcement couldn't have come at a more critical time for the fund. Having just awarded $866 million in its second round of grants, the fund reports that it "lacks the resources to approve a third round of proposals." According to the fund's Anil Soni, it needs at least $6.3 billion over the next two years. AIDS activists have called on the United States to contribute $2.5 billion of that sum, but the Administration plan offers a mere $200 million a year. Bush's unilateralism and parsimony are all the more puzzling, since within days of his speech, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson was appointed the fund's chair, putting him in charge of fundraising. Thompson's elevation is at odds with Bush's rebuff of the fund, but Asia Russell of Health GAP says it creates some leverage for activists. "Thompson is making a commitment as a public health official to devote energy and resources to combat the greatest health crisis of our time, and we're going to hold him to his words in terms of policy and funding."

At best, Bush's plan creates a parallel and redundant funding mechanism that will compete with the Global AIDS Fund. At worst it will be modeled after existing USAID programs, opening the door for right-wing and Big Pharma lobbyists, who will pressure Bush to renege on his pledge to include generics and condoms in treatment and prevention programs, both of which are standard elements of Global Fund grants. As recently as this past December, US delegates blocked a WTO plan to allow developing countries to import generics for national medical emergencies, and USAID currently has a buy-American-only policy that will have to be revised or evaded if Bush truly intends to purchase generics with US dollars.

Also of note, this past summer Bush stripped the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) of $34 million at the request of Republican House members who alleged that UNFPA supported coerced abortions in China--which UNFPA denies--and then shifted that funding to USAID. Many of the same lawmakers also wanted to deny USAID funding to the Population Council for not using abstinence-based HIV prevention programs. Right-wing abstinence groups, including those federally funded by Bush's domestic abstinence-until-marriage program, have taken a keen interest in prevention programs in Africa. They single out abstinence education as the key reason for Uganda's significant reduction of HIV incidence rates. However, Uganda's prevention program combines abstinence and behavior change with condoms, and the most comprehensive data suggest that all three were responsible for lower HIV rates and that abstinence was a negligible factor for those already sexually active. " 02.07.03
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State Of The Union: Bush Hypocrisy In Action

Chances are that if you ask someone to identify the most moving portion of Bush's State of the Union speech last night, you'll be told it was the part about how Bush will get additional money to those African nations who are fighting AIDS. His voice grew grave, low, and soft as he movingly spoke of the need for our rich country to assuage the suffering of those people. The cynics among us might suggest that the AIDS part of the speech was meant to show the world that America is a compassionate nation, not a country of warmongers, as well as placing Bush's humanity on display prior to having him come down hard on Saddam at the end. (The NYT had a story about how Bush practiced the speech over and over, even bringing in former speech director Karen Hughes for, we assume, dramatic direction.) But even aside from that and a bit of word weaseling about exactly how much more money is being given to those African nations, it turns out that Bush has recently been accused of harming Africa's fight against AIDS, and nothing that he said last night changes that.

According to Nicholas Kristof in a reccent NYT column, "Over the last few years conservative groups in President Bush's support base have declared war on condoms, in a campaign that is downright weird — but that, if successful, could lead to millions of deaths from AIDS around the world." If true, the most moving part of the Bush speech turns out to be just one more example of the growing realization on the part of the pundits, if not the citizens, that there's a big gap between what Bush says and what he does. This tactic, apparently, accounts for his positive poll rating despite a policy that harms many of the very people who support him.

Under pressure from Christian conservatives, then Texas Governor Bush supported abstinence education, not condoms, as an AIDS prevention technique, even though nearly all studies indicate comdoms, not abstinence education, is what works. As president, Kristof notes, "Bush has not fully signed on to the campaign against condoms, but there are alarming signs that he is clambering on board. Last month at an international conference in Bangkok, U.S. officials demanded the deletion of a reference to "consistent condom use" to fight AIDS and sexual diseases. So what does this administration stand for? Inconsistent condom use? Then there was the Condom Caper on the Web site of the Centers for Disease Control. A fact sheet on condoms was removed and, eventually, replaced by one that emphasized that they may not work."

Kristof calls the Christian conservative anti-condom argument "junk science," notes that condom use is amazingly cost effective ("Costing just $3.50 per year of life saved. In contrast, antiretroviral therapy cost almost $1,050."), and concludes that "condoms no more cause sex than umbrellas cause rain." Yet, while Bush is able to talk about the plight of people dying of AIDS in Africa while his voice tightens and his eye quivers, his administration has lowered world-wide condom donations from 800 million at the end of his father's term to 300 million today. Accordingly, those who oppose the condom policies of the Bush Administration probably remained unmoved last night because of the contrast between what Bush said in his speech and what Bush does. Perhaps Adrienne German, head of the International Women's Health Colition, put it in the most striking context in an earlier statement: "The Bush administration position basically condemns people to death by H.I.V./AIDS, and we're talking about tens of millions of people." --Politex, 01.29.03

"BUSH'S AIDS PLAN TO INCLUDE ABORTION RESTRICTIONS" "President George W. Bush's $15 billion AIDS plan for Africa and Haiti would restrict the flow of money to groups that perform or promote abortions overseas, U.S. officials said on Friday....That would be in keeping with the so-called "Mexico City Policy" announced by then President Ronald Reagan at a Mexico City conference in 1984 and rescinded by Bill Clinton when he became president in 1993. Under U.S. law, no tax dollars have directly paid for abortions since 1973. The Mexico City rule, which was reinstated by Bush, prohibits giving U.S. funds to groups that spend their own money for abortions or counseling. Critics of the ban call it a "global gag rule" that imposes free-speech restrictions on family planning groups and could lead to even riskier abortions worldwide by denying crucial health counseling." 2.18.03
reuters |related stories

"Bush said the five-year plan would prevent 7 million new AIDS infections and treat at least 2 million people with drugs that can keep an HIV patient alive and healthy. "The program includes the 12 points of prevention that are already well-articulated in World Health Organization program documents," Fauci told reporters in a telephone briefing. These would include the distribution of condoms and instruction on their use, general education and counseling -- including abstinence education."Obviously the president believes faith-based organizations can play a role," added a senior administration official. Each country will work individually with the United States to develop the program, Fauci said. --Reuters

"Faith-based organizations can play a role..."

"Each country will work individually with the United States..."

"Swaziland is dying because condoms spread AIDS. There was no AIDS when there were no condoms available", say many Swaziland citizens. The annual Reed Dance lasts six days. A large group of girls set out to cut reed; for six days they dance before the King, hoping to be chosen to become yet another of his wives or concubine. There are two groups of protagonists in the film: King Mswati III and the members of the royal family, and four fifteen-year-old girlfriends, students from one school, who think what to do to make the King notice just one of them during the Reed Dance and choose one of them for his wife or concubine. Towards the end of the film , we see the fabulous, colorful, half-naked Reed Dance, and we begin to realize that many of these thousand beautiful girls will soon die of AIDS. Andrzej Fidyk