Pat Proxy Post

Note: While Pat is at Army OCS, we picked out a few of his previous columns to reprint them. This particular column is especially applicable to Obama's Stimulus Package, in which there was $400 for HIV prevention, but that provision did not make the final bill due to Republican objection. According to The Southern Voice, "the final stimulus measure allocates $650 million to “carry out evidence-based clinical and community-based prevention and wellness strategies authorized by the [U.S.] Public Health Service Act, as determined by the [HHS] Secretary, that deliver specific, measurable health outcomes that address chronic disease rates.”Activists familiar with AIDS programs said the language opens the way for the HHS secretary to allocate at least some of the $650 million for HIV-prevention programs." This post is a column from his days at Luther College in October of 2005.

Reconsidering AIDS Efforts, October 2005

Think you’re safe from AIDS? Think again. Straight or gay, chaste or promiscuous, sober or spun - anyone can get AIDS, and MTV wants to make sure you know it. An MTV segment that aired in 2003 called “It Could Be You: True Life” featured teens that looked just like the show’s suburban audience. Then they revealed they were HIV positive.

The 2004 comedy “Team America: World Police” picked up on the AIDS scare. One scene depicts the Broadway musical “Lease” with a song proclaiming “everyone has AIDS!” “My father, my sister, my uncle and my cousin and her best friend…the pope has got it and so do you!” the movie’s hero sings.

Maybe Bernard Goldberg didn’t get the memo. The mole that raised questions a few years ago about Dan Rather’s biases in his insipidly titled book, “Bias,” criticized CBS for its special, “The Killer Next Door,” of 1992. He claimed it gave the impression that “AIDS was now everyone’s disease,” and puzzled readers by offering statistics showing that 90% of Americans with AIDS were homosexuals, bisexuals, or junkies. I don’t buy it Bernie. CBS would never report something it doesn’t know to be true.

All sarcasm aside, AIDS is a serious subject. For the 40 million people infected with HIV, it’s a matter of life and death. Maybe this is why it’s political suicide to raise questions about how to prevent it and how to spend donations to help those that have it. Rep. Jim Nussle cut funds for AIDS relief in Africa in 2004, and in protest Luther students called for the school to revoke his Distinguished Service Award.

The African kleptocrats and the World Bank crooks were probably just as upset about Rep. Nussle’s decision to prioritize in war-time spending. Sub-Suharan Africa received $114 billion in world aid between ’95 and ’02, but due to corruption and poor economic infrastructure the region has made little progress. The 2004 Economic Freedom of the World Report listed Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, Guinea-Bissau, the Republic of Congo, and Burundi in the bottom 7 percent of its efficiency rankings, mostly attributed to a lack of a sound money supply. Even if we donate supplies, not money, AIDS is going no where until these governments make some substantial economic reforms. Uganda’s success over the past 15 years (climbing halfway up the list) proves governmental change is possible and fruitful. Until other sub-Saharan countries follow Uganda’s lead, AIDS donations will be trifling.

While governmental problems hinder African AIDS efforts, the trouble in the US lies in generating a truthful message about the disease and appropriating funds to the most relevant projects. The scare-tactics warning that AIDS will be everyone’s problem soon are failing the test of time. As of two years ago, the cumulative number of AIDS cases reported in Iowa’s history was only 1,567. Dr. Howard Dean claims “this is a medical condition that does not discriminate.” True, but misleading. The groups most affected by AIDS are homosexual men, blacks, and drug-users. So why not admit this and spend more money working with these groups? While the percentage of cases transmitted heterosexually has increased, it still only accounts for a third of all cases. Trying to scare everyone to action is a disservice to the groups that need the most attention.

Fighting AIDS is a noble cause, but unless we fight it the right way we are doing its victims an injustice.