Activists slam US over Bush's idiotic abstinence BS in AIDS plans

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TORONTO - Activists at the International AIDS Conference lashed the global US AIDS strategy, claiming it promoted sexual abstinence for political and moral reasons and thus hampered efforts to stem the deadly pandemic.

While acknowledging that President George W. Bush’s 15-billion-dollar, five-year emergency plan for AIDS had had a major impact by getting HIV drugs to poor countries, many campaigners charged it was badly flawed by a linkage with abstinence.

“Sure, the US has put 15 billion dollars into HIV, there is no question that that through that effort we have raised the profile of the epidemic worldwide ... but more money is not always a good thing when it follows bad policy,” said Jodi Jacobson, executive-director of NGO the Center for Health and Gender Equality, as the six-day conference got underway on Sunday.

“People are sexual beings, and sex is a normal part of human life.”

The Bush administration backs the so-called “A-B-C” plan to fight AIDS, focusing on Abstinence until marriage, Being faithful to one sexual partner, and if those conditions are not practised, to use Condoms.