Dec 07, 2007   | COMMENTS     

AIDS activists protest at White House, call for new policies

WASHINGTON (AP) — Dozens of students, HIV-positive activists and health advocates were arrested Nov. 30 in a loud protest at the White House in advance of World AIDS Day. Demonstrators said the Bush administration’s response to the spread of AIDS has been ineffective. They called for increased funding and an end to abstinence-only sex education requirements for U.S. funded HIV and AIDS programs internationally. More than 150 people gathered for the rally. Later, 40 were arrested after they sat down on the sidewalk in front of the White House and refused police orders to move, said Lt. Scott Fear of the U.S. Park Police. “You don’t know how to save lives, Mr. President,”’ Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia’s nonvoting member of Congress, said to cheers from the crowd at the main rally before the arrests. “Stop sending mixed messages with the taxpayer funds of the American people.” The protest and other activities came days after a report detailing the breadth of HIV and AIDS in the District of Columbia. There are roughly 128 cases of AIDS per 100,000 city residents, far surpassing the national average of 14 cases per 100,000 people. To mark World AIDS Day, the White House hung a 28-foot-tall red ribbon in the North Portico of the mansion to symbolize the fight against AIDS. Bush marked World AIDS Day with a speech Nov. 30 at Calvary United Methodist Church in Mount Airy, Md., which supports a Christian group home and school in Namibia for children orphaned by the disease. Bush said his administration has helped increase the number of people in sub-Saharan Africa receiving treatment for AIDS from 50,000 five years ago to nearly 1.4 million now. “We have pioneered a new model for public health,” Bush said. “So far, the results have been striking.”

African reporter gets circumcised to fight AIDS

LUSAKA, Zambia (AP) — A southern African radio correspondent received a flood of text messages and cell phone calls — some from offended listeners and readers — after he chose to get circumcised to protect himself from AIDS, and took the British Broadcasting Corp.’s radio and web audience through the procedure with him Nov. 30. A study published in the Lancet medical journal in February concluded that the findings of three major trials — in Kenya, South Africa and Uganda — show that circumcision can significantly reduce men’s chances of contracting the virus that causes AIDS. Frank talk about AIDS and prevention methods is still rare in Gondwe’s Zambia, where HIV prevalence is 16 percent. That’s what made Kennedy Gondwe’s public testimony on the eve of World AIDS Day even more striking. Gondwe, who says he undergoes an AIDS test several times a year, said in an interview he finds it “sad” that more people don’t talk about circumcision as a prevention method. “We as journalists also have a role to play in the fight against the disease,” he said.

Brazil to install condom dispensers in schools

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) — Brazil’s government announced plans to put condom-dispensing machines in public schools to help teenagers reduce the spread of AIDS. The health and education ministries and the United Nations sponsored a nationwide contest for students to design the dispenser. Three potential models were selected on Nov. 30, the government news agency Agencia Brasil said. Condom machines are to be installed in 100 public schools in 2008, officials said. Health Minister Jose Gomes Temporao this week said young Brazilians between 13 and 24 were the target of Brazil’s anti-AIDS campaign this year. Brazil provides free AIDS drugs to anyone who needs them and has aggressively pushed drug manufacturers to lower prices.

Mandela hosts concert to mark World AIDS Day

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) — The world must not grow complacent about AIDS because the number of new HIV infections still outpaces the number of those being treated for the disease, former South African President Nelson Mandela said at a benefit concert Dec. 1. Since stepping down as South Africa’s first black president in 1999, Mandela, whose son died from the disease, has championed the cause of people with AIDS. He drew a crowd of about 15,000 to his fifth international awareness concert, held this year to coincide with World AIDS Day. “If we are to stop the AIDS epidemic from expanding we need to break the cycle of new HIV infections. All of us working together with ...