Bono: It takes only a dollar a day to stop an African dying of Aids

The Telegraph (U.K.) ^ | 05/30/03 | Bono

[BrooklynGOP]

How much of his own money has Bono contributed?

[wafflehouse]

The total required to beat Aids, TB and malaria is...

more than will we will ever have.

a wise man once said, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure

[ffusco]

So, Africans's can earn One Dollar per day on their own?

[thegreatbeast]

AmFAR has psas all over our buses and subways bemoaning the fact that 1m people are receiving treatment for HIV/AIDS while some FORTY MILLION are not. It is a different set of diseases but most of those cases are occurring in Africa.
So, help me with the math here, 40m/per day times 365 equals...damn my calculator is broken...what did you get?
What if they are starving too? Do we have to feed them too? Will Mugabe take a check, do you know?

[Captainpaintball]

America has stepped up and offered $15 billion over five years.

Wrong, Bozo, I mean Bono. KompASSionate konservative George W. Bush offered OUR money to waste on people not smart enough to keep their mandingo-ding dongs out of monkeys, zebras, and other wild jungle/plains animals.

Even if they did, we'll hear reports of people suffocating from putting condoms over their heads, communist military strongmen hoarding the money/supplies, and more UN screw-ups involving unclean needles, and rapes of 18 month-old babies because, according to locals, it 'cures' AIDS.

A $365 billion tax cut would have been even better. At least it would have been used wisely, and given to the people who truly deserve it.

[RS]

In Africa today, 9,500 people will contract HIV, and 6,500 people will lose their lives to Aids, dying for want of medications that we take for granted.

Just what type of medications will keep them from contracting aids ?

Someone needs to explain that the medications DO NOT keep them from dying... it simply keeps them alive so they can spread it more.
... so our money will simply CAUSE the faster spread of AIDS.

[henderson field]

Maybe George Soros will pitch in.

[Billy_bob_bob]

Mugabe will happily take your check, or anything else he can get his hands on. However, none of it will do his people any good. This situtation is pervasive throughout the whole of sub-Saharan Africa.

The biggest problem with the relationship between Africa and the West is that the West insists on seeing Africa as a place with nations, whereas the Africans are a people without nations, only tribes. No matter what you try to do, once you put a "leader" of a "nation" in power, you have empowered a tribe to loot and pillage members of other tribes. Furthermore, if the new "leader" does not do this, his own tribesmen will overthrow him and replace him with someone who will.

The result is the sad situation we all call "Africa". Any aid sent there is only grabbed by one tribe and used as a weapon against another tribe. This is the way it has always been there, and this is the way it will remain for the rest of time.

[henderson field]

The figure is 690 million for the continent of Africa, 40 million with aids and 18 million born every year.

[ffusco]

They played Joshua Tree at my prom in 87, over and over and over.......

[ladyinred]

So, has" I hate GW Bush" Bono called to thank him for the help for Africa and the aid's problem there I wonder?

[WorkingClassFilth]

"In Africa today, 9,500 people will contract HIV, and 6,500 people will lose their lives to Aids, dying for want of medications that we take for granted."

Sorry, there is NO cure for AIDS.

The problem in Africa is the monumental ignorance and bestial, savage, practices that eclipse anything that can be referenced in Western experience. Africa is a black hole and the explosion of AIDS is the latest expression of that savage ignorance.

Agriculture, especially 'input' agriculture, is the best hope that Africa has to feed and maintain it's stable populace and provide for the future. That is, African nations that aren't beset with tyrannical slime or Leninist regimes may have productive classes that need aid and can profit from external support.

Give money to programs that reward principle. Let the UN minister to the damned.

[ffusco]

"dying for want of medications that we take for granted."
I don't take them for granted, they cost money.

" When they die, they take with them their earning power,"
The earning power that can't earn a dollar a day?

" their human capital - and they leave behind their children."
The capital squandered by stupidity and carelessness?

[ETERNAL WARMING]

A dollar a day? Then I suggest he go to his multimillionaire friends and start collecting. Start with Streisand. Don't forget Bill Gates.

[Belial]

May I suggest that America's blacks, you know, the ones who call themselves "African-Americans", donate a buck or two a day to help their kinfolk. Better yet, maybe they ought to consider moving back to Africa to help bring their homeland into the modern world.

You can suggest it, but you'd probably find more agreement if this were a KKK meeting.

[general_re]

Just what type of medications will keep them from contracting aids ?

The rate of transmission from HIV-infected pregnant women to their unborn children is about 20% - that is, of babies born to HIV+ mothers, 20% of them will contract HIV from their mothers. Taking AZT during the last six months of pregnancy and administering AZT to the newborn for six weeks after birth cuts that risk in half. Combine the AZT treatments for mother and child with a caesarian delivery and you can cut the rate of HIV transmission from mother to child to about 2%.

I always hate to butt in with inconvenient facts, but there you go...

[Blue Jays]

Good Evening All-

CaptainPaintball, your commentary in Post# 7 was some of the funniest writing I have ever seen on FreeRepublic! I was laughing for nearly ten minutes straight.

Similarly, your concepts illustrated in humor/satire can be utilized in explaining tax cuts...even for the so-called "rich" amongst us:

Give a "rich" industrialist tax cuts and he/she will use the available money to expand businesses, build factories, improve infrastructure, and create jobs...helping MANY people.

Give a bum a couple million and he'll buy wine, Cadillacs, fur coats, and jewelry...but will eventually wind-up back in the gutter, helping nobody.

It's the same thing with Africa and AIDS. They're pretty much a lost cause. They don't have enough water and food and most adults are forty pounds underweight. We're going to worry about AIDS first? Where does Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs fit in this picture? It may sound heartless, but we should concentrate on fortifying the healthy and researching a cure...which would be proactive.

By the way, Bono...it's fairly easy to live your life without contracting AIDS/HIV/Hepatitis and a host of other nastiness.

~ Blue Jays ~