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UN Anger Over Uganda's Successful Abstinence Program Fueled by Loss of Funds Says Researcher

UNITED NATIONS, October 13, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The United Nations' envoy to Africa, Canadian Stephen Lewis, is highly critical of an abstinence campaign that has downplayed the role of condoms but been hugely successful at reducing HIV transmission in Uganda.  Population Researcher Institute's Joseph A. D'Agostino suggests that the success in combating AIDS in Uganda "isn't good enough for UN officials, whose love affair with condoms knows no bounds, and who are also angry with America for funding her own AIDS initiative in Africa instead of giving the money to them."

Uganda, whose abstinence campaign has been so successful as to be likened to a highly effective vaccine, has reduced HIV transmission rates from 18% to 5-7%. "No other nation in the world has achieved such success," writes D'Agostino. "Most sub-Saharan African nations, following the pro-condoms model, continue to suffer from rising HIV infection rates. Ugandan surveys show a reduction in premarital sexual activity among Ugandan youth and a reduction in extramarital activity among adults," D'Agostino added. "The result: less AIDS."

Lewis is highly critical of the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which has drawn the focus of AIDS prevention away from condoms to the successful abstinence model adopted by Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni and his wife Janet. "There is no doubt in my mind that the condom crisis in Uganda is being driven by PEPFAR," Lewis said. "To impose a dogma-driven policy that is fundamentally flawed is doing damage to Africa."

"This is a bizarre inversion of the truth, and threatens to do grievous harm to the one HIV/AIDS prevention approach that has actually worked," writes D'Agostino. Even Ugandan Health Minister Jim Muhwezi denied there is no "shortage" of condoms. "There seems to be a coordinated smear campaign by those who do not want to use any other alternative simultaneously with condoms against AIDS," he said.

In 2003, the UN itself (United Nations AIDS agency - UNAIDS) admitted that condoms have a disconcerting failure rate. The study revealed that condoms are ineffective in protecting against HIV an estimated 10% of the time. The admission from the UN, which is far lower than some studies which have shown larger than 50% failure rates, is a blow to population control activists which have aggressively and misleadingly marketed condoms in the third world as 100% effective.

"The UN's approach has failed, and its own statistics show it," D'Agostino emphasized. "HIV rates keep rising, to over 30% in some countries.  Two decades of pornographic sex education and massive shipments of condoms have sent millions of young Africans to an early grave."

"Apparently, achieving results isn't good enough for international grandees," D'Agostino concluded. "It's death by condom or nothing.  But we think the Bush Administration will stay the course."

See related LifeSiteNews.com reports:
United Nations Report says Condoms Fail to Protect against AIDS 10% of the Time
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2003/jun/03062303.html
Uganda's First Lady Warns Teens against Condom Use
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/jan/04011205.html
United Nations Official Slams US for Abstinence Approach to AIDS in Uganda
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/aug/05083101.html
U.N.'s Top AIDS Envoy Forgets Diplomacy in Demonizing U.S. Abstinence First Strategy
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/jul/04071602.html
Uganda AIDS Prevention Success Being Undermined by Infuriated UN Condom-Pushers
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/feb/05020408.html

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