By: Mary Mostert
May 5, 2003
Last Tuesday President Bush urged “both Houses of the United States Congress to pass the emergency plan for AIDS relief, which will dramatically expand our fight against AIDS across this globe.” Since the usually fatal Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) was first identified in 1981 it has killed 28 million people worldwide, 3.5 million people in 2002 alone.
Last Sunday, in an article accompanied by a picture from Beijing of people watching a horse show outfitted in stylish sports clothes and masks to ward off Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS,) caught my eye. In response to SARS, which had killed 131 of China’s 1261 million people by Sunday, Beijing has basically become a “ghost town” with theatres, discos and other entertainment spots closed and the World Health Organization urging people to avoid the city to try to contain the deadly virus. China’s communist leaders have removed both the nation’s health minister and the mayor of Beijing for “not acting quickly enough to address the SARS problem.”
Why, do you supposed, a disease that has killed 131 people has been the subject of worldwide political action and media saturation whereas as a disease that has killed 28 million is hardly mentioned in the media? Why does the Center for Disease Control (CDC) give precise information to the public on how SARS is spread and only evasive generalities on how AIDS is spread?
“The primary way that SARS appears to spread” CDC states on its website, “is by close person-to-person contact. Potential ways in which SARS can be spread include touching the skin of other people or objects that are contaminated with infectious droplets and then touching your eye(s), nose, or mouth. This can happen when someone who is sick with SARS coughs or sneezes droplets onto themselves, other people, or nearby surfaces. It also is possible that SARS can be spread more broadly through the air or by other ways that are currently not known.”
To combat a disease that so far has killed 355 worldwide, people are quarantined, whether they like it or not, and the full force of government is being used to try to stop the spread of SARS by insisting on behavior modifications, which include wearing surgical masks in public and staying away from areas where the virus has broken out. On the other hand, CDC tells us merely, “AIDS is caused by infection with a virus called human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). This virus is passed from one person to another through blood-to-blood and sexual contact. In addition, infected pregnant women can pass HIV to their babies during pregnancy or delivery, as well as through breast-feeding. People with HIV have what is called HIV infection. Most of these people will develop AIDS as a result of their HIV infection.”
While the World Health Organization urged immediate behavior modification as a response to avoiding SARS, the only behavior modification it endorses for AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases is a tepid: “The risk of infection can be reduced by avoiding casual and unprotected sexual intercourse, and by use of condoms. Examples of sexually transmitted diseases are hepatitis B, HIV/AIDS and syphilis.”
When AIDS first became a public issue in California, in the late 1980s, I was on a TV show where I was asked how young people could be helped to avoid it. I proposed that young people be taught the truth about AIDS and told that promiscuous sex, especially homosexual sex was the main way the disease was spread in the state. The 1960s generation hosts of the show, one a Democrat and the other a Republican, let me know in no uncertain terms that no one could expect a reversal of “free sex” behavior among young people. They both urged the teaching of condom use in the public schools.
Fifteen years, billions of condoms and 28 million deaths later, President Bush endorsed the notion that behavior modification in sexual matters is not only possible, but has been remarkably successful in reducing AIDS in Uganda, where the disease had its earliest and most devastating impact: “We know that AIDS can be prevented,” the president said. “In Uganda, President Museveni …began a comprehensive program in 1986 with a prevention strategy emphasizing abstinence and marital fidelity, as well as condoms, to prevent HIV transmission. … The AIDS infection rate in Uganda has fallen dramatically since 1990. And in places throughout the country, the percentage of pregnant women with HIV has been cut in half. Congress should make the Ugandan approach the model for our prevention efforts under the emergency plan.”
It simply is not true that AIDS is avoided by using condoms. Although Planned Parenthood International and others call it “safe sex” and have flooded Africa with billions on condoms, they know the condom failure rate in Africa is 25% in preventing pregnancy and 50% in preventing AIDS. Sharon Slater of United Families, which developed the Stay Alive HIV/AIDS prevention program that is taking Africa by storm said: “Africa is starving for good information and the hope we saw in the eyes of both children and adults as we presented the Stay Alive program was inspiring.”
As Mrs. Museveni, Uganda’s first lady, put it at the 2002 World Congress of Families in New York City, chaired by United Families International: “AIDS kills, there is no known cure for it, it is transmitted mainly through sexual contact, and it can therefore be avoided. …Having seen the havoc that HIV/AIDS can wreak on a society, I would be less than honest if I gave any other message to the next generations of Ugandans other than abstinence and faithfulness in their sexual relationships.”
Most Americans have never heard of Uganda’s amazing success in reducing AIDS deaths through its abstinence and faithfulness program. It simply has not been considered newsworthy by the Western media that is largely controlled by condom-supporting pro-homosexual, pro-free-sex advocates in the press. Meanwhile, that bias has helped kill 28 million people from a disease that can be avoided by simple, old-fashioned morality that is ridiculed by large segments of the media.
Journalists, politicians and spokespersons for the homosexual lobby vilified Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) for mildly suggesting that homosexual acts, along with other sex acts with a variety of partners outside the bounds of marriage, “undermine the fabric of our society.”
When private behavior is causing societies to collapse, as in Africa, I suggest the cause of it no longer qualify as “private” behavior.
To comment: mmostert@bannerofliberty.com