Stephen Lewis, the UN secretary general’s special envoy for HIV/Aids in Africa, “has accused President George Bush of ‘doing damage to Africa’ by cutting funding for condoms, a move which may jeopardise the successful fight against HIV/Aids in Uganda, reports The Guardian:
“There is no doubt in my mind that the condom crisis in Uganda is being driven by [US policies],” Mr Lewis said yesterday. “To impose a dogma-driven policy that is fundamentally flawed is doing damage to Africa.”
Bush’s phony dogma has led Brazil to “refuse to accept $40m (£22m) in American aid rather than stigmatise prostitutes who Brazilian health workers said were essential to their anti-Aids strategy. Senegal was also cut off from US aid because prostitution is legal there.”
On Saturday, while I twiddled my thumbs in the hospital, I watched CNN’s “On the Story” featuring Andrea Koppel and Dr. Sanjay Gupta, who is close to Bill Clinton and his AIDS program — he once worked for Clinton as a speechwriter and White House fellow — and who responded quite frankly to an audience member’s question asking where the money Bush has promised to fight AIDS has gone … BELOW:
OSCAR: Hi, my name is Oscar. I’m from Gothenburg, Sweden. Regarding this growing epidemic, this ever growing epidemic, whatever happened to the Bush administration’s initiative, ambitious initiative?
GUPTA: I’m sorry did you say the Bush administration’s initiative?
OSCAR: Yes.
KOPPEL: I think the $5 billion one, yes.
GUPTA: Right, it’s actually $15 billion over five years. It’s called PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Well, it is there. You know, it hasn’t been as much money as people expected in the first couple of years but it was supposed to be $15 billion over five years, so it could still get there.
The biggest criticism really has been is any of this money going to go towards buying generic drugs. As many of you may know, generic drugs are exponentially cheaper than brand name drugs and people think that if you spend some of this money on generic drugs you could treat and save a lot more people. That hasn’t happened as of yet. A lot of people are still waiting to see if that happens but the initiative is in place. …
— Transcript, On the Story, CNN, Aug. 27, 2005
