When I talk about the need for DONATIONS to this Alliance, this is what I mean.

They can raise a million dollars in one event.

Whereas I have to beg you guys each and every month to send in five dollars or maybe ten.

How on earth do you expect anything to change?

Fact is, ACT will spend that cool million or so on programs that pimp for anal and promiscuity.

That's what they do.

You know that's what they do because you can read about in that link I just gave you.

And that's just one AIDS Service Organization in one Canadian city.

Our opponents have hundreds of millions of dollars available to be spent on the sort of programs that Gavin Kirk described in his "Situation in Scotland" post.

Programs such as the development and mass marketing of comic books with nelly characters who get buttfucked, aided and abetted by their best friends, Johnny (that's Brit slang for condom) and Lube.

What actually happens at these international AIDS conferences?

Well, as we reported in 2004, which was the last time one of these extravaganzas was held -- in Bangkok -- there was a giant condom, described as a "victory monument," displayed; an Australian women's group declared that prostitution is liberating; and a male high school student from Uganda who said he was abstinent was booed.

You can read all about it here: AIDS Inc Cashes In.

But you don't have to take my word -- or that of Mr. Pinkerton of the LA Times -- for it.

Here's yet another account of Bangkok 2004 from the NY Times:

The New York Times

July 16, 2004 Friday

Late Edition - Final

SECTION: Section A; Column 2; Editorial Desk; Pg. 21

Bragging in Bangkok

By Laurie Garrett.

The view from Bangkok 2004 is disheartening, even appalling.

What began in 1985 as an annual gathering of scientists, aimed at sharing laboratory findings and information from the battlefronts in the war on H.I.V., has been transformed into a meeting of 17,000 consultants, bureaucrats and activists fighting one another for money to build a huge global AIDS treatment program, employing tens of thousands of people.

...

But this Bangkok gathering is witnessing the worst science ever presented at an AIDS meeting. Nearly half the scientific presentations expected simply failed to materialize, leaving bare white walls where there were supposed to be thousands of bits of useful data. To be blunt, top H.I.V. laboratory researchers simply don't come to the international gathering anymore, finding it irrelevant.

...

Scientists I know all over the world are demoralized. They have hit extraordinary intellectual obstacles in trying to outwit this dastardly microbe. They no longer feel part of this international AIDS community and have no global platform. And were they here today in Bangkok, they would discover to their sad amazement that few of the 17,000 people in attendance care. They are far too busy offering up their services as consultants.

[emphases mine]

Big business.

Which is exactly what Mr. Pinkerton said in the LA Times.

And which President Museveni attempted to speak to as well.

What can we expect to happen this year in Toronto?

The New York Times

August 8, 2006 Tuesday

SECTION: Section F; Column 1; Health&Fitness; THE DOCTOR'S WORLD;

Pg. 1

Talking About AIDS, With All the World Watching

SERIES: MEDICINE THEN AND NOW: H.I.V.'s Changing Face

By Lawrence K. Altman, M.D

..

As in previous years, noisy protests are likely to punctuate the conference, adding to a circuslike atmosphere and making it seem more like a convention and social gathering than a scientific meeting.

The AIDS conferences are not intended to set agendas or to pass resolutions -- like conferences on the environment, for example -- or even to reach a consensus on how to fight the disease. A few major advances have been announced at the international meetings over the years, but most gains have been incremental, as is true for meetings in other fields.

For these and other reasons, a number of leading scientists have stopped attending, choosing to present their findings elsewhere. The United States is paying for about 175 people -- government employees and representatives of nongovernmental agencies -- to attend.

Some scientists continue to go wherever the conferences are held to attend refresher courses, learn of new findings and listen to reports from disciplines to which they are rarely exposed.

These scientists say they believe the activism and diversity of the participants are critical to keeping AIDS in the news. Still, some supporters complain that the quality of the scientific presentations has declined at recent conferences.

[emphases mine]

"more like a convention and social gathering than a scientific meeting."

Right.

There will be a lot of discussion about how to make more money off of AIDS.

In the meanwhile, the very respected journal AIDSMap reported that ABC programs, which are quite cheap to implement and run, are having success in countries other than Uganda:

Aidsmap dot com

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

ABC prevention successes claimed in Nigeria, Kenya

By Theo Smart

Some PEPFAR funded ABC prevention projects are having an effect on behaviour according to presentations at the PEPFAR’s 2006 Implementers meeting, with reports of delayed sexual debut in Nigeria and reduction in the number of sex partners in East Africa. Although it is too soon to assess the impact of these interventions on HIV transmission, data were presented from other countries, in particular Kenya, demonstrating that these behavioural changes do correlate with lower HIV prevalence rates.

One of the criticisms of PEPFAR’s ABC prevention platform has been that it is quite difficult to get people to change their sexual behaviours, and yet, a growing body of evidence suggest that people do adopt (or at least report adopting) practices to reduce their risk of infection -- even abstinence.

..

[emphasis mine]

Change in sexual behavior -- "primary behavior change" -- is what we advocate.

And it works.

When an effort is made to bring it about.

Will such an effort ever be made in the US?

Not by the analists.

And not by our government -- it favors abstinence and abstinence alone, and even were there to be a change in control of Congress in November, no one's going to support a male-male sexual act like Frot.

We make the effort.

We support primary behavior change.

As in: FROT -- not anal.

What's at stake?

Here's yahoo's summary of the state of the epidemic:

UNAIDS says 2.8 million people died of AIDS last year and 4.1 million people became newly infected. Using a condom remains the only safe method of penetrative sex. A vaccine for HIV remains beyond the horizon, although an effective microbicide -- a virus-killing vaginal or anal gel -- could be available within a decade, scientists hope.

Yahoo says, "Using a condom remains the only safe method of penetrative sex."

But that's not true.

Using a condom is not "safe."

It's "safer."

And it's only truly safer in vaginal.

According to Buchbinder et al, using a condom is NOT safer in anal.

And the Surgeon General of the United States agrees.

So why does the American AIDS establishment continue to push condoms on gay men?

Maybe because it's not an AIDS establishment, but an ANAL establishment.

In our next installment of AIDS at 25, we'll look at just how well those gay condom campaigns are doing in our nation's very own capitol -- Washington DC.

Bill Weintraub

© All material Copyright 2006 by Bill Weintraub. All rights reserved.