A new Nigerian scam?

for those of you who may have missed it, Laura Bush (W Shrub's missus) is in Nigeria at the moment, taking a wee "swing-around" having been at the inauguration of Liberia's new president.

"Voice of America" (news you can trust since the middle of the Second World War) reports "US First Lady Donates AIDS Drugs in Nigeria".

Excuse me? Laura is DONATING drugs to Nigeria? Shouldn't that be "First Lady is a drug courier" ?

Some other points that beg to be pointed...

"She announced $163 million in new funding to stop the spread of AIDS"
- please define "New Funding" Is this in addition to the already promised PEPFAR billions, or just an initiative that has been approved under this funding banner?

"Mrs. Bush also brought antiretroviral drugs to St. Mary's to help strengthen its efforts to prevent mother-to-child transmission."

- if an hiv neg woman was to try and take ARV's to the US to donate to a community health centre she would be put on the first plane back to wherever and have "DEPORTED" stamped in her passport

- was it just a small box, or was the entire hold of Air Force One full of pills?

"Instead, she and her husband, Sani, who is HIV negative, are part of a counseling group for couples facing the disease."

- in these circumstances, does a FBO (faith based organisation, article mentions that St Mary's hospital is Catholic) condone a married couple using condoms? Or do they think abstinence is the best course, or sign Sani up for a Tenofovir trial?

"Mrs. Bush said preventing mother-to-child transmission is particularly important in combating the disease as it protects the next generation."

- fine; but after the first or second pregnancy with no ARV's in between, what is the resistance profile looking like?

- what about on-going drugs, so that the mother CAN survive and look after her children? who is going to look after all the children?

- why is the life of the unborn child always sacrosanct, and the mother can only get drugs to prevent vertical transmission? What life is the child going to have if / when orphaned; oh sorry, in this case daddy is neg, so he can stay home and bring up the kids.

Don't get me wrong; I don't for a second believe that hiv is a reason to bar women from having children, I strongly feel that they should be supported in doing that where it is safe and the resourcing to make it safe for the children and the mother are appropriate. Where that resourcing isn't there, then put it there.

My views on the harm that the "church" has done to cause the current levels of over population / lack of resources / spread of hiv on that continent is little more than a raving diatribe... and now the horrendous harm that the Bush Administration's (again, didn't use the word "regime") A-B-C initiatives are causing. Don't get me started today, please.

I will do a post soon on links between disease eradication, no contraception, and population explosion.