No abstinence, no aid

Brazil is now the first country to decline a US grant for AIDS relieve because US money requires that the recieving country not use the funds on any real programs. The money has to go toward promoting abstinence. Quoth FMF:

Brazilian officials feel that condemning prostitution will damage efforts to protect sex workers from contracting and spreading HIV/AIDS, a group that has the highest risk of contracting AIDS.

According to the Associated Press, because Brazil’s prevention and treatment model includes working with sex workers, gay men, and injection-drug users, top Brazilian AIDS officials believe that signing the pledge would only hurt their AIDS efforts.

Hopefully this is a sign that the Bush doctrine of throwing money at poor countries to force them into way-right morality is losing steam.

All the money in the world, applied to a bogus remedy, is no kind of cure.

Now if only that would translate to all of our nation's public schools, we might be getting somewhere.