This May 9, 2010 New York Times article about how the war on AIDS is being lost in Africa includes a rather startling statement:
Science has produced no magic bullet — no cure, no vaccine, no widely accepted female condom. Every proposal for controlling the epidemic with current tools — like circumcising every man in the third world, giving a daily prophylactic pill to everyone contemplating sex or testing billions of people and treating all the estimated 33 million who would test positive — is wildly impractical.Wow! A strategy that works, and 2/3 of it is something those nasty, narrow-minded, evil Christians promote. (And most evangelicals regard the last 1/3 as better than not even trying.)
And, most devastating of all, old-fashioned prevention has flopped. Too few people, particularly in Africa, are using the “ABC” approach pioneered here in Uganda: abstain, be faithful, use condoms.
Several years ago I had a discussion with a colleague about AIDS in Africa. This fellow is very sharp, with PhDs in both astronomy and physiology, and he is very much grounded in reality. He told me that, in his view, roughly 25% of sub-Sahara Africa might die of AIDS in the upcoming 20-30 years, simply because it is very difficult for humans to change their ways.
ReplyDeleteI think his predictions may come to pass.
Notice that that first 2/3 of the strategy also happen to not put any money into the pockets of pharmaceuticals...
ReplyDeletepeace,
Zach