The Bush administration, again this year, proclaimed today to be World AIDS Day. In a turnaround from last year, the Bush administration has asked congress to approve 2.9 billion dollars to be used for AIDS research. Further, it has requested 500 million dollars intended for international AIDS.
“But critics immediately charged that the initiative was not only too little too late, but also too narrowly targeted. The package is also potentially skewed toward helping the very same companies that feted the president at Wednesday night’s mega-fundraiser ? which was sponsored among others by GlaxoSmithKline CEO Jean Paul Garnier.”
“Bush’s new initiative is also consistent with the agenda of his other key electoral constituency ? the Christian Right. While the Christian Right has become increasingly focused on fighting AIDS, it is less supportive of treatment programs that prolong the lives of HIV/AIDS victims whose life-style they still disapprove of. Preventing the spread of AIDS from mother to child ? rather than providing anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs for adults with AIDS ? remains therefore the most politically appealing and safest option for an administration that obsessively cultivates its electoral base.” – Jim Lobe, Alternet.org
On top of that, earlier this year, Bush rejected the international effort to educate children on matters of sex education, pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease prevention and protection. The administration cited grave moral reservations on the topic of providing reproductive mental health education to people under the age of 18 years.
President George W. Bush is blocking an international drive to provide teenage sex education because of his belief in chastity before marriage. Health experts say this could fatally undermine the battle against Aids.
“Bush has poured millions of dollars into ‘true love waits’-style programmes in America, which teach that abstinence out of wedlock is the best way to avoid underage pregnancy.” – Gaby Hinsliff, Gaurdian Unlimited.
Bush and his supporters, for moral reasons, wish to ignore the fact that children under 18 have sex. Using this position, they have side-stepped contributing to efforts to educate the children of other countries such as Africa. Instead of using the money for education they have chosen to focus it mainly upon research and the purchase of AIDS drugs. Which supports his generous and influential friends in the pharmaceutical industry.
Sad indeed. Like a typical politician (indeed, not different than a democrat) that wish to please both constituents and contributors and continue to ignore problems off camera. Yet, because of these large amounts of money, he seems to most people as though he is helping. When in fact, he is not helping at all. Instead he and people like him with this thinking is making the problem more complex and ignoring more potential contributions to a solution.
It’s this approach that will not only make the problem worse, it will continue to foster a condition that others can profit from.