“Researchers increasingly agree that curbing behavior is key to slowing the spread of AIDS in Africa,” the Washington Post article continued. The article quoted Serara Selelo-Mogwe, a public health expert and retired nursing professor at the University of Botswana, who said, “If you just say use the condom… we will never see the daylight of the virus leaving us.”
The article said that Botswana used programs favored by Western AIDS experts whose experience had been shaped by their study of the epidemic among American homosexuals and Thailand brothels. The anti-AIDS partnership between the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the drugmaker Merck dedicated $13.5 million to condom protection, more than 25 times the amount dedicated to changing dangerous behavior. Botswana’s HIV infection rates continued to rise, and are now among the highest in Africa.
Representative Smith also cited a U.S. Government’s 2008 Annual Report to Congress, which said, “perhaps the most important [development] in recent years is the growing number of nations in which there is clear evidence of declining HIV prevalence as a result of changes in sexual behavior” and “behavior change will remain the keystone of success.”
Smith’s remarks about the successful results of ABC models of HIV/AIDS prevention were made on the House floor as he spoke in favor of the “Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde United States Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008,” which would renew the PEPFAR program and change some of its policies.
The bill, Smith said, would require the Global AIDS Coordinator to provide “balanced funding for sexual transmission prevention including abstinence, delay of sexual debut, monogamy, fidelity and partner reduction.” If less than 50 percent of prevention funds are spent on the Abstinence and Be Faithful sections of the ABC model, the bill requires the Coordinator to provide written justification. At present, Smith said, the Coordinator can waive requirements without notifying Congress.
Smith claimed that the bill would likely prevent 12 million new HIV infections worldwide and support 3 million people, including an estimated 450,000 children. He said the bill would also provide care for 12 million individuals with HIV/AIDS, including 5 million orphans, while helping train and deploy 140,000 new health care professionals and workers for prevention, treatment, and care of the disease.
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Representative Smith also said the conscience clause in the bill “restates, improves, and expands conscience protection” for organizations so that they are not discriminated against in fund distribution. Smith specifically mentioned Catholic Relief Services as one agency covered by the conscience clause.