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THE AIDS CONFERENCE CIRCUS

The 16th international conference on AIDS held in Toronto in August was a three ring circus. In the main ring were the chief entertainers, former U.S. president Bill Clinton, philanthropists Melissa and Bill Gates and Stephen Lewis, who performed for the crowd while bestowing, at the same time, lavish praise on one another for their commitment to "the cause".

Little was accomplished at the conference because, as stated by Canadian Health Minister Tony Clement, the meeting was so politically charged that it was "becoming a place where you couldn't have a rational discussion". Stephen Lewis, former Ontario NDP leader, now the UN's special envoy on AIDS in Africa, had a grand time performing for the crowd, repeatedly condemning Prime Minister Stephen Harper who had the good sense to stay away from the circus. As stated by Globe & Mail columnist Margaret Wente (August 17, 2006) "If I have to hear Stephen Lewis lecturing us with his apocalyptic rhetoric one more time, in think I'll choke". She recommended that Mr. Lewis take an Ativan to calm down.

Failure of AIDS Prevention Campaigns

After 25 years and many billions of dollars spent on AIDS, prevention is a ghastly failure since the number of persons living with AIDS has increased dramatically. In short, even though there are promising drug treatments that prolong the lives of AIDS patients, tragically, society is still not coming to grips with the disease. According to the UN and World Health Organization (WHO), HIV/AIDS has increased by over 20% in Canada since 2000. In August, 2006, overall, it was estimated, by the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) that there were 2,300 to 4,500 new HIV infections last year, compared to an approximate 2,100 to 4,000 infections in 2002. The prescription cost for each patient is between $10,000 and $20,000 each year. The financial cost, plus the human suffering involved with AIDS, is monumental.

Yet, it is easy to avoid AIDS. A person who is chaste before marriage, faithful in marriage and married to someone who is also faithful and doesn't inject illegal drugs has very little chance of becoming HIV positive. The only exception is when our blood system becomes contaminated as occurred in the 1980s because of the then Canadian Red Cross' failure to raise the politically incorrect question of homosexual's contributing to the blood system. (See REALity, September October 1998.)

We know it's a preventable disease because Uganda has shown this and knows what has to be done to stop AIDS. Throughout the 1980's, the rate of HIV/AIDS climbed to a staggering 30% of the Ugandan population, in line with most other countries of Africa. But since the establishment, in 1987, of the country's home-grown programs of abstinence and marital fidelity, the HIV/AIDS rate was reduced to as low as 6.2 per cent. The Christian churches, Catholic, Anglican and Evangelical, worked successfully with the government to develop policies to promote marital fidelity and a "no grazing" message to "stay with your husband, stay with your wife." It worked.

In the last year, four other countries have imported the Ugandan program and are seeing some success already. HIV/AIDS rates are starting to fall in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, and Swaziland since they began the implementation of the programme.

If prevention is so easy, why is the epidemic continuing unabated? The reason is that a coalition of AIDS patients and activists has set up an AIDS industry, which has vetoed every tested public health strategy for controlling this sexually transmitted disease. Don't tell people not to engage in promiscuity, prostitution, and injection drug use, they insist, just tell them to be "responsible" and use condoms for "safe" sex.

This hasn't worked because people who engage in frequent multi-partnering, employ sex workers, and have substance abuse problems are, by definition, not responsible. The research shows there is a clear connection between irresponsible sexual behaviour and alcohol and drug abuse. Twenty-five years of experience has proven that no matter how much safe-sex education the irresponsible receive, they will not use a condom every time and even if they did, there still is no guarantee of safety. The epidemic continues, unabated.

AIDS activists are also exerting constant pressure to keep budgets high and accountability of these programs minimal, while demanding the usual sexual freedom, especially for homosexuals. These policies ensure that new infections occur. Their strident voices and aggressive tactics include nullifying ideological opponents, which helps deflect evaluation of their own ineffectiveness. Just ask billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates, who at the Toronto AIDS conference inadvertently tripped on a land mine in his opening remarks. He mentioned abstinence and faithfulness within marriage as strategies to combat the deadly disease. This provoked loud unanimous boo's from the audience. Mr. Gates quickly recovered from his faux pas and launched into a discussion about why U.S. President Bush's ABC program (abstinence, faithfulness and condoms) does not work. Mr. Gates' experience was a snapshot of the problem - AIDS is handicapped by AIDS activists who fight furiously against the idea that AIDS programs should target certain sexual behaviour. In short, there is an increasing war against abstinence programs. In fact, there is much invested by some, both monetarily and ideologically, in not encouraging abstinence, as they are more interested in protecting and promoting sexual liberties than in preventing new infections.

How much longer are we going to allow this AIDS establishment to prevent standard public health strategies from being put in place to fight against the spread of AIDS? Standard public health practices include mandatory testing of the at-risk population, eg. pregnant women, etc., contact tracing and partner notification, abstinence education, closing down establishments that cater to male/male sexual activity with heavy substance abuse eg. crystal meth in "gay" bathhouses, and the prohibiting homosexual oriented youth programs in our schools since the lives of youth are at stake and they must be dissuaded from engaging in any sex outside marriage - especially dangerous male-to-male sex.

Homosexuals and the Canadian Blood Supply

It is discouraging that a court challenge has been commenced to prohibit the Canada Blood Services (CBS) from asking the pertinent question when people are donating blood, as to whether the contributor had engaged in male-to-male sex. The homosexual lobby group EGALE in May 2006, was added as a party in the case. It claims such a question by CBS is "discriminatory". EGALE argues that the issue to be addressed by CBS is risky sexual behaviour, not sexual orientation. Yet, the entire court case was commenced because a homosexual falsely declared "no" to a query on the CBS screening questionnaire asking whether he had had sex with a male since 1977. Soon afterward, the homosexual contacted the agency to admit that he had lied and that he strongly objected to the screening procedure. Fortunately, the CBS was able to remove his blood from the system before it was infused into someone else. However, this situation indicates how risky it is to allow homosexuals to give blood, since their response, as shown, is not always reliable. Consequently, it is better to prohibit homosexuals from giving blood, since AIDS is not curable at this point in time and homosexual sexual activity is high risk - infinitely more so than heterosexual sexual activity. The Canadian AIDS Society is also intervening in this case as a "friend of the court".

What about the public's rights in this case? We have to rely on the "wisdom" and "common sense" of a judge to protect us from AIDS in the blood supply. Unfortunately, we know from past experience that these two characteristics are not in abundance in our politically correct justice system. This test case is to reach the trial stage in May, 2007.

AIDS organizations that receive public funding must be held accountable. They must be prohibited from enabling behaviour that causes the transmission of HIV. In short, AIDS must be treated as the terrible epidemic it is. Three ring circuses don't cut it: We must get serious about this disease.

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