11/10/08

UNITED STATES:  Condoms Trump Abstinence in Obama Global AIDS Policy

The co-chair of Barack Obama's advisory committee for women's health said the president-elect will reverse US family planning and HIV prevention policies that have linked global funding to anti-abortion and abstinence education.

Susan F. Wood, a research professor at George Washington University School of Public Health, said Obama "is committed to looking at all this and changing the policies so that family planning services - both in the US and the developing world - reflect what works, what helps prevent unintended pregnancy, reduce maternal and infant mortality, prevent the spread of disease."

George W. Bush, on his first day as president, reinstated the so-called "Mexico City Policy" barring US assistance to organizations that use funding from any source to provide abortion counseling or referral, lobby for abortion access, or perform abortions except in cases of rape, incest or a threat to the woman's life. Bush also denied more than $200 million in funding to the UN Population Fund on the grounds it supported coerced abortions in China, a charge UNPF denies.

Under the President's Emergency Program for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the United States provided more money to fight AIDS in poor countries during the Bush years than under any previous administration. However, critics say program restrictions on condom education have hurt prevention efforts.

"The US administration has certainly succeeded in demonizing condoms rather than showing that they can be part of prevention of both unplanned pregnancy and [STDs]," said Gill Greer, director general of the International Planned Pregnancy Federation.

But Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association, countered that PEPFAR's emphasis on abstinence and fidelity "has been shown to have demonstrable success in Africa." "It would be more than unfortunate if that policy was changed," she said.

Mitchell Warren, executive director of the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, called the focus on abstinence "naïve and dangerous." "Everyone pretty much expects we'll see a return to a true science-based response to HIV under Obama," he said.

Source: Bloomberg News:: Jason Gale; John Lauerman; Courtesy of the CDC National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention