Bush Withholds UNFPA Funds for Seventh Straight Year … Included in Wednesday’s roundup was an Utne Reader article asking if battling AIDS could actually become the legacy of the president who has aggressively pushed an abstinence-only sex education agenda upon both the US and the rest of the world. Today it seems more likely that Bush will be remembered for stubbornly sticking to failed policy agendas in the face of good evidence against said policies. He did it with Iraq when, as the public found out after the invasion, he had good evidence that there were no weapons of mass destruction. He and his far right cohorts in congress (well, weak democrats were complicit, too) have done it with abstinence-only sex education, forcing it upon schools even after strong evidence surfaced that the policy is making America’s youth more likely to contract STDs and become pregnant far too young.

And now Bush has done it seven years in a row with funding for the UN Population Fund, or UNFPA, despite numerous investigative teams that have repeatedly found that no link exists to coercive
practices by the UNFPA in China (the reason cited by Bush for denying funds) and in fact report that UNFPA’s pilot programs
have demonstrated voluntary family planning methods in 80 counties have
been “a force for good” in China.

Nicholas Kristof has a short blog on the issue at the NY Times and OneWorld.net has a more in depth look at the seven year history of Bush denying UNFPA funds. Bush has now deprived the worthy organization of $235 million.

The Bush legacy will be that of the cowboy who stuck to his guns despite the proof that he should holster them standing right before his eyes.

Today is National HIV Testing Day … It is important to know your HIV status, especially all those New Yorkers having unsafe sex. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that
180,000 to 280,000 people nationwide are HIV-positive but are unaware
of their status. HIV counseling and testing enables people with HIV
to take steps to protect their own health and that of their partners,
and helps people who test negative get the information they need to
stay uninfected.

Across the country, thousands of HIV counseling and testing sites,
state and local health departments, and community-based HIV/AIDS service
providers will participate in NHTD events, by holding health fairs,
providing community and media outreach, hosting special testing-related
events or operating extended hours.

Breast Cancer Vaccines Look Promising … Some good news is emerging in the fight against breast cancer. Everyday Health reports that "Women with metastatic breast
cancer who developed an immune response to an investigational vaccine
lived twice as long as those who didn’t have an immune response, new
research shows."

Conservapedia Says Conservatives Don’t Get STDs … For a good laugh check out this post at The Lay Scientist debunking a Conservapedia entry titled Marry a Conservative. The entry boasts "Marry a Conservative: Benefits include: freedom from sexually transmitted diseases and their harm (including infertility)." The Lay Scientist shows that conservatives states, bastions of abstinence-only sex education, own the top three spots for Syphilis, Chlamydia and Gonnorrhea.