Beth Pellettieri is the Coordinator of the International Youth Leadership Council at Advocates for Youth and the co-chair of the Toronto YouthForce Advocacy Task Force.
I arrived in Toronto yesterday morning, with AIDS 2006 banners flying high downtown and 25,000 registered participants gradually beginning to descend on the city. Although the XVI Toronto International AIDS Conference begins Sunday, organizers and activists are already in Toronto, turning months and even years of planning into action.
Naina Dhingra is the Director of International Policy at Advocates for Youth and serves on the Developed Country NGO Board Delegation of the Global Fund.
Bill and Melinda Gates showed their generosity again today by announcing a new $500 million contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria. The five year contribution makes $200 million available immediately for the upcoming sixth funding round for which countries are currently applying.
The Global Fund was created by the international community as an innovative public/private partnership. In just four and a half years, the Global Fund has committed over $5.5 billion to over 132 countries. Instead of being driven by donor interests and policies, countries determine for themselves their needs and submit proposals to the Global Fund for financing. The proposals are evaluated by an independent body of world renowned technical experts and then are sent for approval to the Global Fund's governing board. The Board includes representatives of donor and recipient governments, civil society, the private sector, and affected communities. A Secretariat in Geneva is responsible for signing the grants and working with countries to ensure results-based progress.
The Global Fund is crucial to women's and young people's sexual and reproductive health as it is a donor agency that is not bound by ideological donor restrictions. The Global Fund is committed to funding science-based approaches and respecting the rights of countries in determining programs that match their needs.
The FDA yesterday indicated that Plan B emergency contraception could be available over-the-counter soon, promising to act on a new application from the manufacturer within weeks.
Senator Joe Lieberman, who opposed the availability of emergency contraception, even for rape victims, at hospitals whose beliefs he placed more value on than that of the individual woman seeking emergency contraception, was defeated in the Democratic Primary for a fourth term as a US Senator.
The FDA's reputation as an independent agency serving the best interest of the public has been sullied as it allowed itself to be dragged deeper and deeper into the political morass that allows ideology to replace scientific fact and provable health data.
I have spent a lot of time these last couple of months working with my colleagues at the Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE) and with advocates, researchers, and people living with HIV around the world on the launch of a new campaign to dramatically increase access to the female condom.
During this time, I found myself mentioning the female condom and the campaign (Prevention Now! www.preventionnow.net) to my friends on more than one occasion. These well-meaning and pretty well-informed, progressive people (many of them global health activists) couldn’t figure out why I would be spending so much time on this campaign.
It seems like for the past several years Americans have become more polarized by a great divide deepening between the right and the left, conservative and liberal, red states and blue states. The myth of a dramatic culture war has become pervasive in the popular consciousness. But that's exactly what it is - a myth.
A poll by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center shows that most Americans fall in the middle on many hot issues such as abortion, homosexuality, and other controversial social issues. Though the country is still split on the topic of abortion (51% think it should be available compared to 46% who think it should be illegal), 66% of Americans believe that we need to find a middle ground. This solid majority willing to consider opposing views comes from a varied background - including different religions, political party, race, age, and geographical location.
In the state that is home to some of the most ardent anti-choice activists - Focus on the Family and an incredibly outspoken Catholic bishop - Coloradans rejected a renewed attempt to limit access to abortion services. Despite efforts in every parish and beyond to collect enough signatures to get their measure on the November ballot, they just couldn't cross the threshold.
Last week, in preparation for the international AIDS conference that kicks off in Toronto on August 13, Plan International released a report called "Circle of Hope: A Global Framework for Tackling HIV and AIDS." Among other findings, the report highlights that marriage is often more of a risk than a remedy for women seeking to protect themselves against HIV and that fragile economies mixed with gender discrimination make abstinence an unsustainable strategy for women, who also find it close to impossible to insist on their partners' fidelity or condom use. The report exposes the Bush administration's panacea of "ABC" as the woefully inadequate strategy it has always been. Its findings won't come as a surprise to those who deal on a daily basis with the complex realities of HIV/AIDS.
Public health advocates in California have been working to prevent the spread of disease among injection-drug users by making needles available at pharmacies without a prescription. Unfortunately, when the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors had the opportunity to legalize sales of needles last year, they gave in to misinformation and fear that increasing access to clean needles would increase drug use. Studies have found that increased syringe access decreases infection such as HIV and Hepatitis C - not that it encourages people to do more drugs.
When a government agency makes a decision, they complete an unbiased analysis based on scientific data... right? I mean, the FDA decides whether Americans have access to various medications - so one would think that they must really be grounded in science and not be influenced by little things like politics. No?
Court documents recently released by the Center for Reproductive Rights confirm that FDA officials decided against approving Plan B for over-the-counter use WELL BEFORE the data review was finished by agency scientists.
