U.S. Focus on Abstinence Weakens AIDS Fight, Agency Finds

From The New York Times:

Insistence by Republican Congressional leaders that American money to fight the spread of AIDS globally be used to emphasize abstinence and fidelity is undercutting comprehensive and widely accepted aid models, the Government Accountability Office said in a report released Tuesday.

The report by the G.A.O., an investigative arm of Congress, examines the effect of a mandate from Congress that at least a third of United States money to prevent the spread of AIDS worldwide be devoted to sexual abstinence and fidelity programs.

It found that the provision had limited the reach of broader strategies to fight AIDS that include the use of condoms — a conclusion strongly contested by a senior Bush administration official.

The report also said the requirement had meant that officials in some countries have had to reduce spending on programs to prevent the transmission of H.I.V. from women to their newborn babies, as well as other prevention strategies.

That bunch of fuckers.

What's the moral here, folks? Vote Republican and a substantially higher number of men, women, and children in Africa will contract AIDS and die a slow, agonizing death.

Via AMERICAblog.

Technorati tags: AIDS, Abstinence, Africa, GOP, Bullshit