Ignorance = Death

I am appalled at where the world is with regard to HIV/AIDS. It's been 20 years now, and still backward and prudish ideas about sex are killing people. The facts are that people will have sex, and a main way HIV is spread is through sex. Condom use is ingenious behavior on the part of humans. Pausing in one of the most primal of acts to protect oneself and others from harm should be encouraged and applauded, not treated as a second-best approach to the ridiculously naive and idealistic approach of abstinence.

Intolerance of non-heterosexual or extra-marital sex, denial of the widespread nature of domestic rape, and clinging to the mistaken belief that sex itself is somehow dirty or wrong --- these things just don't cut it anymore. It's time to wake up and smell the pandemic.

But Ted Green, a member of Bush's council on AIDS, said programs aimed at changing sexual behavior
were not obtaining funding. He also questioned the focus on condoms.

"If you are telling me that people can't stop AIDS unless they buy a product. I simply don't agree
with that," he said.

What the hell? Now they're trying to link AIDS with a manufacturing conspiracy? Guess what? People don't have to buy condoms. Nearly every health clinic in America gives them away for free; why shouldn't they be able to do so in the rest of the world? Funds for condom distribution make more sense than funds for strict abstinence education. Come on people, let's start using the big parts of our brains, already.