A/B and AIDS

Today the NYT reported that the AIDS effort lead by Bush are limited by his restriction on spending, according to a panel of medical experts that testified in Congress yesterday. The three major problems they found were:

¶The requirement that 33 percent of all money for prevention be spent teaching chastity and fidelity, even in countries where most cases are spread by drug injection.

¶The need for separate Food and Drug Administration approval of AIDS drugs that the World Health Organization has already approved.

¶Laws forbidding the use of taxpayer money to give clean needles to drug addicts.

These testimonies are hardly surprising. I've long thought that such focus on AB or "abstinence/be faithful" instruction will do little to stop such an epidemic. Perhaps we should be listening to medical experts when it comes to a medical crisis like AIDS.