Why is it whenever he claims “God has called him into action”, I cringe??
The wind-up:
The Pitch:
Does he score??? Let’s see…
source: HERE
Re: Bush's AIDS relief promises and the reality...
Minah,
Having spend a great deal of time in the Heath Care Field, I can assure thou there are better resources than "Rolling Stone" to do an analysis of the AIDS crisis in Africa. As with any highly complex business plan, product roll out or software program, certain things must fall into place to be successful. The current bottlenecks are as follows:
1) There is a critical shortage of Healthcare Providers in Africa. Two things appear to be happening. First, Heath Care workers themselves are dying at a much faster pace than anticipated, and second, qualified Health Care workers are fleeing the countries most effected. This is particularly critical in Physicians, Nurse and Labortory Technicians.
2) Almost all AIDS care is "Test" driven. A number of hypercritical lab test must be performed, the tests must be performed frequently and reliably. The test results are the backbone of the treatment methodology. Participating countries have been very slow in setting up the infrastructure needed, and no amount of money can be thrown at the problem to cure people without the infrastructure in place.
3) Ongoing infection rates are much higher than anticipated, causing food shortages, overloaded healthcare resources and a much greater infection rate than anticipated. Prevention education is now available, but people are simply choosing not to listen. Additionally infection rates are so high that the virus has shown signs of rapidly mutating. The need for absinance and prevention/education is very real. The only reason the disease was caught and controlled in the West is that prevention efforts were effective. This has not been the case in Africa.
4) Last year the total expenditures for AIDS in Africa was $6Bil. The projection is that that expenditure could increase 50% per year with current funding commitments. The log jam is not money at this point, it is the healthcare infrastructure that needs to be ramped up to make the drugs and treatments effective.
5) Healthcare in Africa is so poor, that diseases like Malaria and Tuberculosis are still threats. These diseases were erradicated 50 years ago in virtually all of the rest of the world. This is indicative of the absolutely barren healthcare system througout most of Africa.
Please take the time to read the WHO, UNAIDS, or CDC reporting on the challenges facing Africa, and take reporting from the Rolling Stone with a grain of salt.
Re: Bush's AIDS relief promises and the reality...
But I like it sooooo much darn it
Re: Bush’s AIDS relief promises and the reality…
Unless it’s a war, then you can go in like an asshole unprepared and spend $200+ billion in 2+ years no problem.
I don’t buy the excuses OG puts forth, the U.S. can spend more money and allot more resources to open up the bottle neck but it doesn’t and that’s pathetic.
Re: Bush’s AIDS relief promises and the reality…
Didnt the US withdraw alot of money previously put into sex clinics for women, providing both condoms and abortion services simply becasue it was anti eve angelistic thinking?
I think I remember reading that these efforts were going in the stead to promote abstinance in Africa 
Re: Bush’s AIDS relief promises and the reality…
UTD,
The dirty little secret among epidemiologists is that we may have reached a point of no return. The core issue is that unless people quit having unprotected sex frequently with multiple partners, that AIDS may well be uncontrollable. Many epidemeologists already think we are at this point, but this is such a hot potato politically that no one wants to acknowledge it. Take South Africa:
http://www.africancrisis.org/Photo.asp?Subject=HIV
[thumb=H]sademhiv47554_5997407.JPG[/thumb]
She above graph shows the steady infection of up to 22 million in a population of 44 million. Most epidemiologist believe that society will collapse before your get to a 50% infection rate. If the infection rate cannot be slowed down, the exponential rise will be unstoppable. barring a miracle, a cure or a vaccine, nothing is working EXCEPT in countries that have successfully implemented strong preventive programs. This is not politics, it is cold blooded science.
Re: Bush’s AIDS relief promises and the reality…
There is already substantial evidence that agriculture is reaching a point of collapse due to AIDS. As agricultural workers become infected, health status drops in the entire population, and the infection rates and death rates become greater. To save the population, you must support the entire economy.
The AIDS epidemic tends to follow an exponential curve. “After a certain threshold of prevalence, about five percent, exponential growth makes it difficult and very expensive to deal with its consequences,” says Ms Villarreal. “It is therefore crucial to develop interventions before a full-fledged epidemic develops in a country.”
Under current FAO projections, the hardest hit countries could lose up to 26 percent of their agricultural labour force within two decades. Lessons need to be learned from the countries in which the epidemic is advanced so others can act quickly to prevent the same devastation.
Prevention is complex and goes beyond the use of condoms, she says. “I am talking about education, agricultural policy that takes into account the possible impact on the spread of the epidemic, addressing the economic roots of cultural customs such as wife-sharing, and addressing unequal gender relations linked with the dissemination of the virus.”
And success is not a one-time achievement. “Recent studies show that when a country thinks that it has the epidemic under control – as was the case in Thailand and Uganda – they start slacking and giving fewer resources to information and prevention programmes,” Ms Villarreal says. “Then the epidemic rises quickly again. AIDS is not something you ‘get over’. It is a problem that needs a long-term, integrated strategy addressing all sectors of society, with a strong political commitment.”
http://www.fao.org/Focus/E/aids/aids5-e.htm
Re: Bush’s AIDS relief promises and the reality…
Hiccup, Bush did cutoff funds to family planning groups which provided education to people (including those in Africa) on AIDS prevention.
So thank Bush for speeding up the process to get to the 'Point of No Return", it was one of his first acts as President.
http://www.globalgagrule.org/pdfs/issue_factsheets/GGR_fact_HIV.pdf
Re: Bush's AIDS relief promises and the reality...
UTD, hiccup - he didn't cut funds he redirected them to organizations that preach abstinence as opposed to safe sex with condoms. Bushie baby likes to push the religious envelope in his policies, another reason I can't wait for this oaf to get out of office.
Re: Bush's AIDS relief promises and the reality...
Politicizing a virus is such a futile effort. UTD if you want to throw darts, the simple fact is that AIDS would have been much more controllable druing any one of the 8 Clinton years. The mathematics of infection are simple. If Clinton had proposed the same $15 Billion AIDS package 10 years ago, it would have had an exponentially greater chance of averting catastrophe. To slice one small example of politically charged family planning is ignoring the fact that there are 20 times more infected people today than in 1992.
But of course, blaming Clinton for anything gets us nowhere. But those are indeed the facts. In epidemiology, speed is everything. Clintons' delay was a far more monsterous calamity, and it allowed the wildfire to spread to where it may well be a fait accompli....
Re: Bush's AIDS relief promises and the reality...
OG, it was politicized when Bush decided to place restrictions on how the money is spent to appease the Christian right, yet you drag Clinton into it, come on.
Re: Bush's AIDS relief promises and the reality...
UTD, those are the facts. By the time Bush got in office the problem was orders of magnitude worse than at any time Clinton was in office. Those are the facts.
The virus travels on a vector. If you ask any scientist how to stop AIDS, their method of choice would be stop having sex. Having truely monogamous sex is a close second. Having protected sex is only partially successful. In this case the religious right is actually in sync with good science.
The real problem is that minor issues such as battles over drugs, and family planning absorb so much oxygen that the real problem is missed. That problem is that infection rates are rocketing at exponential speed, outstripping any ability to treat or cure. The only way to win this fight is to stop infection rates in their tracks. That is the lesson of AIDS in the West, and of SARS. Once the cat is out of the bag you have millions of cats. It is now bordering on the impossible.
Re: Bush's AIDS relief promises and the reality...
OG, that's some justification of Bush's decision to move funds to programs that are shown to be ineffective and keep funding low.
Re: Bush's AIDS relief promises and the reality...
You are fiddling while Rome burns, squashing ants when the elephant is about to squash you. Distracting petty arguements are going to kill millions. Bickering kills people.
That $15 billion is a good start. If one or two percent of the total become the focal point we lose. We should instead be focused on the effectiveness of the huge bulk of the available funds. The friction created with petty arguements kills people. Bureaucratic delays kill people. Speed is everything in epidemiology. Democracy often works at odds with an effective solution when time is a killer. Bushs' solution speedily done will trump any other solution, no matter how noble, done slowly. Period.
Re: Bush's AIDS relief promises and the reality...
OG, Bush is the one who is delaying the funds, did you even read the article?
Stop defending this sh1t.
......
Thanks to the president's foot-dragging, his "emergency plan" took its sweet time getting going. Bush requested only $2 billion for PEPFAR in its first year -- a billion less than one would expect. Then, when Congress decided to approve $400 million more than the president asked for, Bush unsuccessfully fought to block the increase. By the time the first relief funds arrived in Africa, nearly a year and a half had passed since the president announced his plan -- a costly delay in fighting an epidemic that claims 8,500 lives every day.
Re: Bush's AIDS relief promises and the reality...
I can't believe this thread. UTD.....have you been attending a madrassah recently. Now you argue that Bush is responsbile for the spread of AIDS in Africa. With some certainty, I can state that GW never had unprotected sex with anyone in Africa. I doubt you can make the same claim with respect to the prior President.
Despite Clinton's rhetoric about how important Africa was, his international AIDS budget never exceeded around $340 million. And you bash Bush because ONLY $2 billion of the $15 Billion he committed was used in the first year. The World Bank has estimated that $10 BILLION ANNUALLY will be needed to combat AIDS internationally. GW has committed the US to providing about 30% of this annually.
Sorry UTD, but dropping $1 billion in condoms in the African jungle isn't going to alleviate the epidemic.
Re: Bush’s AIDS relief promises and the reality…
No and nor was I suggesting dropping condoms in the jungle (and by the way most people in Africa don’t live in jungles). But appeasing the Christian right and putting money towards ineffective abstinence only programs is the dead wrong answer.
You are writing about what Clinton should have done and I am writing about what Bush is doing, don’t be so offended of the facts, if you are don’t defend them.
Bush pours hundreds of billions into Iraq and I criticize the funding that goes to fighting AIDS in Africa and you question if I’ve been attending a madrassah recently, how telling myvoice.
Re: Bush's AIDS relief promises and the reality...
For those of you who are ignoring the obvious. Last years budget on AIDS in Africa was $6 Billion. A $3 Billion increase would have been a 50% annual increase, with more huge increases every year.
Incase you missed the discussion I had above, trained medical personnel are now fleeing the area. Secondary infections including tuberculosis and malaria are worsening as a result of immune deficiency. Lack of food is weakening the population. Caregivers are dying at a faster than predicted rate. Ethnic conflicts and low grade wars delay help. In most rural areas there are no doctors, no clinics, no laboratories, few roads and no communications. How the hell does throwing money at the problem overcome those difficulties? The problem is not the appropriated funds, it is not wasting them when the infrastructure is incapable of absorbing them. Obviously Bush is prepared to spend $15Bil, he has never been shy with the checkbook.
In my prior life, one of my business partners designed rural health systems for Eskimos, Native American Alcohol treatment centers, as well as 20 international projects. She continued to follow through on a lot of these projects even after we went into business together, and I frequently did budget analysis for her. The most consistant thing about building rural healthcare delivery systems is that it will never get done quickly by Western standards. It will always take twice as long as originally planned, because third world governments are horrifically slow, even compared to American government.
UTD, I am sure you are a good hearted liberal, but you have no idea about the enormous task you are critqueing.
Re: Bush’s AIDS relief promises and the reality…
No offense OG, but I’ll take the word of those on the ground in Africa if they need money.
June 5th, 2005
Money for Africa drying up, aid agencies say
aid workers say they are having to cut programs, either because money has been diverted to victims of the Asian tsunami or because official help is being increasingly channeled through governments as debt relief or direct aid.
“We’ve certainly seen some cuts in funding in the last year,” said Dave Snyder, spokesman for U.S.-based agency Catholic Relief Services. “We’ve had to cut back some programs.”
-read more here-
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/africa/06/05/aid.reut/
Re: Bush’s AIDS relief promises and the reality…
UTD,
Sorry dude, the facts don’t support your scattered instance.
http://www.catholicrelief.org/about_us/newsroom/publications/AR_2003.pdf
http://www.catholicrelief.org/about_us/newsroom/publications/2004_Annual_Report.pdf
Cash grants from US Government 2003= $109 million
Cash grants from US Government 2004= $145 million
Amount spent on AIDS 2003=$24 Million
Amount spent on AIDS 2004=$44 Million
Catholic Relief has seen it’s funding from the US Government go up 30%, and it’s AIDS funding go up 80%.