DAVID BRUDNOY
If I knew thenI WOULD just as soon not open my life once more to inspection, but on this I have standing. My story was news, sensationally covered a decade ago, and I would prefer that it be history, not current events. But as one who was infected with HIV in the late 1970s, nearly died from HIV-related diseases in 1994, and have lived with AIDS since, I feel the need to speak out, again.
I have been through what I wish no one else would ever have to go through. If we knew then that HIV can be impeded in its entry into a person's bloodstream by a condom, I and millions of people would have used them. Or at least we might have. We didn't know, we behaved as people behave, and there we have it: the AIDS pandemic. I'm one of the lucky ones, in one of the few countries where the latest drugs that extend the chances of life reasonably unencumbered by the horrors of AIDS-related illnesses are available. But my near-collision with death has put me among those who will not remain silent while our government behaves grotesquely. It is nothing short of grotesque to advise people against a simple, inexpensive device, easy to use and effective, lest somehow we offend those whose concept of God is of One who would rather that His (or Her) human creations die or sicken miserably than permit the use of a condom. Had we only known a quarter century ago. Well, we didn't. And now, I am outraged by our government's position of imposing more restrictions on AIDS education by slamming down hard on information about and availability of condoms. Demonizing condoms as the devil's engine, casting doubts on their effectiveness -- and certainly they are not 100 percent effective, usually because of improper use -- is not the same as laboring zealously to make them appear beside the point in combating AIDS. And pretending that young people wouldn't have sex if sex education were only watered down to the point of meaninglessness or eliminated entirely is a cruel fantasy. Aside from the contrarian notions of Dr. Peter Duesberg and an infinitesimal number of scientists and a few political leaders, like South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki, those who know what causes AIDS know that condoms are a usually effective barrier to the virus's transmission. Mbeki at last seems to have come to his senses, after who knows how many hundreds of thousands, or millions, of preventable deaths have already occurred in his country. The scientific community does not speak against abstinence. Abstinence works. Uganda, once headed in the same direction as much of equatorial Africa, urges abstinence, if possible; if not that, then committing to monogamy; or if not that, then condom usage. In this, Uganda operates wisely, recognizing what the Bush administration refuses to acknowledge, that preaching abstinence may be good for the soul, a matter for each individual to consider within the context of his religious beliefs, but proper use of condoms also works.
Politics and ideology trumping science is nothing new, in our country and elsewhere. The Bush administration, however, has carried this to its farthest extreme. Indeed, its fixation about condoms takes on a particularly inane dimension, as it does in the Roman Catholic Church, when condoms are demonized even for those who are not trying to forestall conception, namely homosexual males. This is an old but endlessly repetitive story: the government of the richest large nation on earth, with the best medical care, continuing to propound views about preventing AIDS that not only don't minimize infections but in a perverse way guarantee there'll be more of them. More torment, more economic and political chaos, more social disruption, more death.Our government's nonsensical approach to this horrific plague isn't going to be slowed by blocking one remarkably effective approach to stemming its growth. The Bush administration should hang its head in shame for this absurdity. David Brudnoy is a communication professor at Boston University, a WBZ radio talk host, and founder of the David Brudnoy Fund for AIDS Research at Massachusetts General Hospital. © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
|
