Posted on 03/11/2005 10:27:36 AM PST by xzins
Harvard Doc: Abstinence, Monogamy Can Help Win War on AIDS
Mary Rettig and Jenni Parker Agape Press
March 10, 2005
A senior research scientist from Harvard says abstinence and faithfulness are more effective than condoms to stop the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Dr. Edward Green of the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies is the author of Rethinking AIDS Prevention (Praeger, 2003). He says he wrote the book after the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) dismissed his study of effective AIDS prevention program, and instead hired another researcher, one who favored condoms, to conduct another investigation.
According to Green, officials with USAID and the United Nations have continued to contend that promoting abstinence simply is not practical. He disagrees, however. "It's hard to argue with success," the doctor says. "If you look at the countries in Africa that have the highest levels of condom use -- countries like Botswana, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya -- these are not countries with lower HIV infection rates. These are countries, unfortunately, with higher infection rates. So what all these experts are saying, that [promoting condoms] is the only practical thing -- first of all, it's not working."
On the other hand, Uganda has become to many the "poster-child" nation for what has been called the ABC approach -- an AIDS prevention program that emphasizes encouraging people to "Abstain" from sexual activity, "Be faithful" in marriage or a monogamous relationship, or if one chooses to do neither A nor B, use Condoms.
Green says Uganda has been a success story for initiatives that stress abstinence and faithfulness in particular, largely because the churches in the country have helped to promote them. "The faith-based organizations, whether Christian or Muslim, were mobilized in countries like Uganda and Senegal and Jamaica," the researcher says, "so church leaders and religious groups played a big role in targeting those behaviors -- fidelity and abstinence."
As a result, the Harvard scientist says churches in Uganda and around the world are having a significant impact on the containment of HIV and AIDS. Nevertheless, he notes, many global groups that promote condom use consider churches and other faith-based groups to be obstacles to the fight against AIDS and HIV infection, and tend to frown on anyone who supports the efficacy of their abstinence- and character-based approaches.
In fact, Green notes, the U.S. Agency for International Development refused to accept his documented evidence that abstinence and faithfulness work to curb HIV, instead choosing to bring in another researcher -- one predisposed to favor condoms-based prevention -- to conduct another study.
Nearly two years ago, Green testified before the U.S. Senate's African Subcommittee about the effectiveness of Uganda's ABC approach. He observed that, in little more than a decade, it had helped bring about a steep decline in the African nation's HIV/AIDS infection rates: they had dropped from 21 percent to 6 percent since 1991.
In his 2003 Senate testimony, Green noted, "Many of us in the AIDS and public health communities didn't believe abstinence and faithfulness were realistic goals. It now seems we were wrong."
Must have taken millions in grant money to figure this rocket science out.
What next, a discovery that men and women are somehow different?
ping
common sense
sounds like his fellow researchers don't like his conclusions.
LOL. Excellent post.
Even more important:
Don't be a butt-boy!
and this is news, oh my god, dont have random sex and you wont get aids...stop the press
This inconvenient fact has long been known in pro-life circles. As soon as the UN and USAID move into an African country with condoms and sex-ed, the AIDS rate skyrockets.
It's absolutely typical of these left-wing bureaucracies that they will only hire scientists willing to prove what they want them to prove. That's one reason why science can no longer be trusted--because the bureaucrats buy the answers they want to hear.
After all, the cushy jobs enjoyed by USAID employes depend on building the bureaucracy, and in this case building the bureaucracy means more and more condoms.
wonder why they're giving this guy grief?
At Harvard this will likely get someone fired.
ping
what if you don't have the "monogamy" gene?
Duh!
I wonder if Lawrence Summers will weigh in on this?
I'll bet poor lawrence has bought himself a replica of the proverbial 10 foot pole.
I suppose these geniuses will tell us next that not sticking needles in our eyes reduces our chances of eye injury.
This thread is about Abstinence and Monogamy and this woman clearly is not in any position to do either one.
I was about to write that no woman should want any man that isn't monogamous. From a woman's standpoint, a non-monogamous man is a threat to her family, in the fact that condoms do not stop STDs as well as the threats from other women (and their boyfriends).
But now I see this picture and see our country is in a far worse state.
Therefore, I pray that the Lord would intervene and make abstinence and monogamy a matter of survival once again. If it takes Super-HIV, then so be it.
May it become so bad that America has no choice but to repent and ask forgiveness. I ask it, Lord, because of this picture and the children which this hurts.
bttt
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