Hot Docs: AIDS in America, Criminalizing HIV, Obama's National Security Team
Today's selection of timely reports
AIDS and HIV in the United States: AIDS is the No. 1 killer of black women between the ages of 25 and 34, says a new report by the Center for American Progress, released to mark World AIDS Day. The nonpartisan center outlines the scope of the crisis in the United States: 53 percent of new HIV infections in 2006 were in gay and bisexual men; black women are 15 times as likely to be infected with HIV as white women; the HIV rate in Washington, D.C., is 1 in 20, the same as in sub-Saharan Africa; and African-Americans make up more than 45 percent of new infections, even though they make up only 12 percent of the U.S. population.
Criminalizing HIV: With the high rates of people infected with HIV, many sub-Saharan African countries have passed criminal laws to try to prevent further spread of the virus. A report from the U.N.'s Integrated Regional Information Networks' PlusNews service discusses the existing and proposed laws and their impact. More than 10 countries in West Africa have passed laws concerning HIV. The model that many of the current laws are designed on was created at a September 2004 workshop in the West African country of Chad. In a few countries in West Africa, pregnant women can face criminal charges if they don't take preventive measures to inhibit transmission of the virus to their child. Some churches in Nigeria have adopted a "no test, no marriage" rule for couples, where the future bride and groom are required to have an HIV test before marrying. Critics fear that laws that "criminalize HIV" won't help decrease spread of the virus but will result in even more discrimination against people infected with the virus, among other things.
Obama National Security Team Announced: Calling this "a new dawn of American leadership," President-elect Barack Obama announced more key administration posts on Monday when he named six people to his national security team. Sen. Hillary Clinton will serve as secretary of state while Robert Gates will continue as secretary of defense. Former Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano will head the Department of Homeland Security, and Susan Rice was named ambassador to the United Nations. The attorney general post will be filled by Eric Holder, and Gen. James Jones will serve as national security adviser. Obama praised the range of experience the appointees have and noted that in today's interconnected world, their task is profound: "From our markets to our security; from our public health to our climate—we must act with the understanding that, now more than ever, we have a stake in what happens across the globe."
Obama Administration Should Reverse Course on Cuba: Obama should adopt of series of measures that could lead to the normalization of U.S. relations with Cuba, a new report argues. Among other things, the report by Jake Colvin, vice president of global affairs for the National Foreign Trade Council, a pro-trade business group, calls on the new administration to remove travel restrictions on Cuban-Americans, remove restrictions on sending financial support to family in Cuba, and rescind the Bush administration's limits on "people-to-people travel and trade." The report notes that "these steps, combined with longer-term approaches aimed at dialogue and reconciliation with the Cuban people, would set the stage for normalization of relations."
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Reader Comments
AIDS and the need for a quarantine
Had standard public health practices been used when AIDS (actually first known as GRID, Gay-related immune deficiency) first showed up in 1981, the presence of AIDS in the US would today merely be an historical footnote.
Standard practices include quarantining individuals. Remember the guy who was honeymooning in Italy and upon his return to the US was put in isolation because he had XDR TB?
Typhoid Mary was locked away for continuing to sell apples despite her condition as a vector.
Similarly, AIDS vectors should have been quarantined in a separate facility. They weren't, due to political pressure from homosexuals. The result was that hundreds of thousand died. It's too late to save them, yet even now it would be possible to stem the tide in the US by a broad-based quarantining of the AIDS population.
AIDS
America should have criminalized AIDS in 1986 but the Gay political caucus which included minority political representatives raised holy hell about the subject until the state and national lawmakers cringed in fear they would alienate a small proportion of their constituency. Like the Nazis of 1933, it was the loudest voice - the Gay voice - that was heard, not necessarily the right voice. Now, the black community is getting its reward for its political leaders supporting the Gay political agenda. When viewed within the framework of the political landscape of the past twenty years, this article sounds like crocodile tears to me. If you do not believe me about the past alliance of Gay politics and minorities, just read the numerous articles about the failure of the Gay political movement to pass the Gay marriage law in California in November 2008. The Gay community is blaming the minority community for not supporting the marriage initiative.
Not only should we criminalize AIDS, we should quarantine anyone who has the disease in order to stop the spread of the disease as much as possible. And we should require all foreign born visitors to the U.S. to have an AIDS-free blood test in order to get any type visa. AIDS equals no visa.
For those who are saying men are mostly to blame for whatever reason, remember this - for every man who has gone to bed with a woman, there is a woman who has gone to bed with a man. What a profound thought for those - uneducated masses - who think only men are promiscuous.
When the AIDS issue came to the forefront of the media back in the mid-1980’s, I remember a woman who contracted AIDS who was charged with attempted murder because she said she slept with many men, trying to give AIDS to as many as possible. Because the Gay community saw such prosecution as detrimental to their lifestyle, they rose up in support of the woman and the charges were dropped. She should have spent the rest of her life in isolation in prison, not turned loose back on the street to give AIDS to more men. The state prosecutor’s behavior - letting the woman go free - in instance was criminal.
Finally, the AIDS epidemic in Africa is over-blown. Sure, there are numerically numerous AIDS cases in Africa. The reason for this is, Africa men and women do not associate moral issues with sex. Sex for most of them is just a bodily function like breathing, or eating. Again, I know this from living and working in Africa. African women are extremely promiscuous. There are numerous organizations that owe their existence to the continued flow of free money to Africa. These organizations beat the AIDS drum and the money flows like a free running river. I have worked in Africa and I understand what is going on there. Too bad most Americans are either too lazy, or too stupid to figure it out themselves. The African political leaders take their cut of aid money (all aid money, not just AIDS) amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. These despo
False Monogamy
The reason so many women are becoming infected is that they're married or in long term "monogamous" relationships with men who sneak around and have gay sex behind their backs. Oftentimes, they're upholding their end of the bargain but the men are not. In the black community, this is referred to as down-low behavior, but as Jim McGreedy, I mean McGreevey, and Senator Larry Craig have shown us, it happens across all races and ethnicities. The take away? Women should use condoms with everyone - even their husbands!
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