Julie Davids is the Executive Director of CHAMP (Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project).
Twenty years ago, AIDS was burning through the country and decimating whole communities while Reagan fiddled away. ACT UP New York burst onto the scene with a rallying cry of "drugs into bodies," shutting down Wall Street over the price of AZT, the only treatment and the most expensive drug ever marketed.
The group grew into a powerful and innovative social force—with hundreds of independent chapters worldwide—and racked up hard-won victories from the accelerated approval of the drugs that turned around the epidemic in the U.S., to changing the very definition of AIDS, to include the conditions seen in women and injection drug users so they could access research and benefits, to the establishment of underground and legalized needle exchanges, to the vigilant defense of the civil and human rights of people living with HIV.
Mitt Romney makes me sick, and not just because he hasn't stopped hating on my home state of Massachusetts since he shed the governor's mantle in favor of a shiny new presidential hopeful suit. I'm sorry, but the man has no integrity, and if so-called "values voters" wind up voting him into office, then we will finally have definitive proof that they do not know what the word "values" means.
A quick review of the flip-flopping—more worthy of a freshly caught fish than a man who honestly believes he has the credibility to run for president—that has characterized Romney's political career. Our story begins in 1994, during an unsuccessful run for U.S. Senate. During a debate with staunchly pro-choice opponent Ted Kennedy (D-MA), Romney made the following statements on abortion:
"I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country."
"We should sustain and support [Roe v. Wade] and the right of a woman to make that choice."
Almost half of the women in sub-Saharan Africa who want to delay their next pregnancy or have no more children don't have access to modern contraception or other family planning services. Some of those women want to use contraception to space or limit births, because they're too young or too old or too sick or too tired to add new members to their families. Some have other aspirations for their lives right now than childbearing. Whatever the reason, a woman who doesn't want to get pregnant should be able to choose to use contraception and should have access to that contraception and to all reproductive and sexual health care services.
Some papers recently released by the Guttmacher Institute on adolescent pregnancy in Central America have got me thinking about the issue, since here in Nicaragua, it's not uncommon to begin having children in your teens. No big surprise, since sex education is basically non-existent, quality health services and complete health information are a distant dream for most of the population, and abortion is illegal without exception. In the organization where I work, the phenomenon breaks down primarily along class and educational lines: the women who clean the offices and work in the cafeteria almost all started having kids during their adolescence, whereas the women in the program staff (researchers, trainers, and writers), who generally had more resources and more schooling growing up, started having kids later in life, or don't have children at all.
I couldn't believe it when I read the news in The Washington Post. I mean, I shouldn't be surprised, but it still seems outrageous—even for this administration. Of course, this is the same administration who demonstrated that "W Stands for Women" by eliminating the White House Office of Women's Initiatives and Outreach (where I am almost embarrassed to admit that I interned, shortly after the scandal with that other White House intern) in its first day of office (which was also my birthday, by the way). Not that I hold a grudge ... ok, back to the point.
According to insiders, the Office of Women's Health has had a quarter of its operating budget taken away by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). And apparently they've already allocated or used what's left—so essentially they have no money to run programs and would have to halt operations for the rest of the year.
Julie Davids is the Executive Director of CHAMP (Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project).
Imagine that you live in a country where HIV infection rates are on the rise. In your nation's capital, one out of every 20 people is HIV positive. In some socially marginalized communities, nearly half of people are HIV positive.
In this place, about half of all people who need to be taking HIV medication to stay healthy are unable to access medication on an ongoing basis, and some have died while on waiting lists for drugs. Hundreds of thousands of HIV positive people pass through prisons and jails each year, and no effort is made to coordinate education, prevention or social services for them.
If you are reading this post from the United States, you live in that country. The epidemic in Washington, DC rivals that of some African nations; people in South Carolina and West Virginia have died on waiting list for AIDS drugs; and Black gay and bisexual men, at the intersection of the gay and Black epidemics that comprise the majority of cases in our nation, have rates of HIV that average 46% across urban centers.
My four-year old daughter makes me proud in the toy aisle at Target. We're looking for a gift for one of her girlfriends who is turning five soon. My daughter's mimicry of my intense hatred towards a slew of popular young girls' dolls like Barbie and Bratz may be rote but it's firmly implanted. For a toy company like Bratz or Mattel, makers of all things Barbie, there is no getting around my maternal barricade; at least for as long as my daughter believes that mama knows best. This, however, is not the case for millions of young girls in this country. Girls as young as three-years old are now the direct targets of marketing campaigns hawking things like toys and clothing with obvious overtones of sex and sexuality. Add advertising and media content that over-emphasize the importance of physical appearance and sexual appeal for women and according to the American Psychological Association's (APA) latest report, The Sexualization of Girls, you've got a "broad and increasing problem" that is "harmful to girls."
We join with our friends at Catholics for Free Choice and throughout the entire sexual and reproductive health and rights movement in saluting Frances Kissling as she looks forward to a new part of her journey. Today's New York Times has a wonderful profile and you can read her writing for Rewire here.
The very complexity of scientific studies can make them their own worst enemy. Valuable research is too often communicated in technical language and rigid formats that make it difficult for non-experts to interpret and evaluate the findings. Worse, some groups deliberately use outdated, incomplete, misleading and outright false information to further an ideological or religious agenda. This creates an environment in which it is increasingly difficult for the public and legislators to distinguish scientifically sound studies from agenda-driven junk science.
It needn't be that way. Social science research, with its focus on human behaviors, relationships and social institutions, can be a rich source of material for journalists, policymakers and program administrators. Indeed, social science findings have their greatest impact when they are useful to—and used by—groups that channel research into practice to improve people's lives.
Here's an idea for Campaign 2008 .... Tivo the whole thing so you can fast forward past the boring parts. Like the Oscars, this campaign runs the risk of people tuning out too soon. This past week, from Hollywood to the Christian Right, its been a battle for the Elites, and more evidence that the cultural extremes are out of touch with reality.
At least the Oscars only lasts for one day. The campaign news gets recycled through multiple news casts, trying to make something out of nothing, like those interesting, but useless, Pilobus performances at the "green" Oscars. We salute the National Resources Defense Council's efforts to use the Oscars to promote more "green practices" knowing that every little bit helps, but not even Scorsese could have directed Leonardo DiCaprio's "green" lines to pass the laugh test amidst all the excess that is Oscar night. Al Gore and the triumph that An Inconvenient Truth is, was an authentic dose of reality against a backdrop of extravagance.
