[North-NV-Greens] Fwd: [usgp-dx] US ideologues put millions at risk of AIDS (Aryeh Neier, Int'l Herald Tribune)

[Paul Etxeberri]

>
>
>The AIDS Epidemic: US Ideologues Put Millions At
>Risk 
>by Aryeh Neier
>
>The International Herald Tribune, March 4, 2005
>http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/03/04/opinion/edneier.html
>http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0304-29.htm
>
>
>Global fanfare accompanies every International
>AIDS Conference, but an obscure United Nations
>meeting next week in Vienna may prove more
>critical to the course of the global HIV
>epidemic. Delegates are gathering for the 48th
>meeting of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, a
>largely unpublicized UN entity that sets the
>international drug control agenda and that this
>year is focusing on questions of HIV prevention.
>If recent events are any gauge, the commission -
>cowed by American hard-liners - will challenge
>the efficacy of programs, like needle exchange,
>proven to reduce HIV transmission among active
>drug users. With the world's fastest-growing
>epidemics now fueled by intravenous drug use,
>millions of people at risk for HIV, particularly
>in Asia and the former Soviet Union, will pay the
>price.
>
>Shown in dozens of studies in America and
>elsewhere to reduce transmission without
>increasing drug use, needle exchange is perhaps
>the most effective of all strategies to prevent
>the spread of HIV . Yet in a pattern familiar
>from debates over sex education, Washington
>conservatives seem eager to hold up distortions
>of science as a model for the rest of the world.
>At last year's meeting of the Commission on
>Narcotic Drugs, Europeans and Australians watched
>in amazement as American delegates declared the
>evidence for needle exchange "unconvincing."
>
>U.S. representatives also blasted as a "counsel
>of despair" the harm-reduction approach, which
>recognizes that even drug users unable or
>unwilling to stop using drugs can be helped to
>avoid the AIDS virus and other problems. Backed
>by a coalition of prohibitionists that included
>Russia, Sweden and Japan, the United States
>ensured that the resolutions adopted by last
>year's commission were stripped of every mention
>of harm reduction. Any discussion of human rights
>of drug users was similarly excised.
>
>This year the United States has not waited for a
>global gathering to force the UN to pledge
>allegiance to "zero tolerance." American
>officials have put significant back-channel
>pressure on the UN Office on Drugs and Crime -
>the current chair of the UN's joint program on
>HIV/AIDS - to retreat from needle exchange and
>other harm-reduction measures.
>
>After a November meeting with Robert Charles, an
>assistant secretary of state in charge of the
>U.S. Bureau of International Narcotics and Law
>Enforcement Affairs, the director of the Office
>on Drugs and Crime, Antonio Maria Costa, promised
>that he would review all of the office's printed
>and electronic statements to remove references to
>harm reduction. Costa also pledged that the
>office would be "even more vigilant in the
>future." As a start, a senior staffer directed
>subordinates to "ensure that references to harm
>reduction and needle/syringe exchange are avoided
>in UNODC documents, publications and statements."
>
>
>More than semantic sanitation is at stake. In
>Russia, where estimated HIV cases now surpass
>those in all of North America and where 75
>percent of new infections are attributable to
>intravenous drug use, officials have long pointed
>to the proceedings of the Commission on Narcotic
>Drugs to justify misgivings about needle exchange
>and refusal to treat addicts with noninjectable
>opiate substitutes like methadone.
>
>Last year, Ukrainian officials returned from the
>commission to announce that they were shelving
>plans for a methadone pilot program.
>
>In Thailand, government officials claimed that
>Costa had given his blessing to drug control
>efforts that included mass arrests, forced
>internments and more than 2,500 killings of
>suspected drug dealers. Costa strenuously denied
>the claim. But his office recently suspended a
>Bangkok-based program dedicated to reducing
>intravenous drug users' vulnerability to the AIDS
>virus in East Asia.
>
>Completely dependent on donor contributions - the
>largest share from the United States - the Office
>on Drugs and Crime is caught between the rock of
>American intransigence on drug policy and the
>hard facts that show needle exchange and other
>harm-reduction strategies to be effective.
>
>Having removed condom information from federal
>Web sites and insisting on abstinence-only sex
>education at home and abroad, the Bush
>administration is now poised to override the best
>available evidence in deciding how best to fight
>HIV related to drug use. What is needed at this
>year's Commission on Narcotic Drugs is unanimous
>commitment to deploying the tools, including
>needle exchange, known to reduce HIV among drug
>users, not the American policy of scuttling
>prevention methods proven to save lives.
>
>
>Aryeh Neier is president of the Open Society
>Institute.
>
>© 2005 IHT
>
>###
>
>
>
>
>__________________________________________________
>Do You Yahoo!?
>Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
>http://mail.yahoo.com
>_______________________________________________
>Natlcomaffairs mailing list
>To send a message to the list, write to:
>Natlcomaffairs at green.gpus.org
>To unsubscribe or change your list options, go to:
>http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/natlcomaffairs
>
>You must know your password to do this.
>
>If you can't figure out how to
>unsubscribe, as a last resort only,
>send a message OFF LIST to
>steveh at wagreens.us
>
>If your state delegation changes, please see:
>http://gp.org/committees/cc/documents/delegate_change.html
>
>For other information about the Coordinating Committee, see:
>http://gp.org/committees/cc/


-- 
Paul Etxeberri

"Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow"   ---Chateaubriand