World AIDS Day

As another World AIDS Day passes on Dec. 1, efforts to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and treat those infected continue to come up against poverty, racism, lack of accessible medical care and assaults on women’s right to control their own bodies.

The figures on who gets infected these days show that class and national oppression, as well as the subordination of women, are the main factors in spreading the deadly virus. People with access to adequate medical care, education and an enlightened social environment are relatively safe and, if they have contracted the virus, are much less likely to fall ill or pass it on to someone else.

People with HIV/AIDS and medical workers around the globe continue to be appalled that U.S. policy on this question can be dictated by narrow-minded religious fanatics who demand that countries promote “abstinence only” over contraceptives in order to qualify for AIDS programs and funds.

For example, the U.S. Agency for International Development, which is supposed to help developing countries, recently cut off funds to a Central American HIV-AIDS prevention program run by Population Services International (PSI), a nonprofit group. The action was taken after right-wing Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, waxing moralistic, complained that the group was teaching prostitutes how to use condoms.

Another NGO, DKT International, had its funds for AIDS-prevention work in Vietnam cut by USAID for the same reason. The right-wing groups behind this pressure don’t care a bit that women are forced into prostitution not for lack of “morals” but because of poverty—which in both Vietnam and Central America is strongly linked to decades of aggressive U.S. intervention and war.

Uganda, which has cooperated politically and militarily with the U.S. in Africa, is not spared the attentions of the right-wing bigots. It has been successful in reducing the rate of new infections, but faces what groups there call a “condom crisis” that could allow the disease to rebound. The Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE) says condoms have become difficult to find in cities there, even for a high price, and are completely unavailable in many rural areas. People are resorting to using plastic bags as a substitute, the group says.

CHANGE warns that other African countries, including Zambia, Kenya, Namibia and Tanzania, face the same situation. It says the problem is linked to U.S. policies that undermine effective AIDS/HIV prevention.

Many lives are in the balance. On World AIDS Day, the struggle must continue to beat back the right wing in this area, as in all others.