Cut AIDS Funding Now

I was watching "Saving Millie" on CBS tonight, when I heard about AIDS funding being approximately $1100 per patient, compared to $400 for all cancers (and of course, $34 for Parkinson's, the cause in this movie). This abject stupidity is a direct result of the kind of junk science that turned an STD into the greatest public health crisis in history. Recently on "Imus in the Morning," columnist Mike Barnicle pointed out the irony of putting so much funding into what is essentially a preventable disease instead of one like autism which affects about 1 in 166 children.

Now, of course, AIDS is a very real crisis throughout subsaharen Africa. It concerns me very much, however, that humanitarian resources that could be used to feed millions is used instead to treat considerably less people with complicated regimines of expensive drugs. This is not about the relative morality of contracting AIDS, but the fact that intercourse is becoming a death sentence there. Abstinance is one of the few programs proving effective in stemming the tide of the disease. AIDS is not genetic. It is not caused by environmental factors. It does not occur in animals. It is transmitted from person to person and stopping that transmission is just as good as a cure.

A link: www.michaeljfox.org