Forum: United Nations' unfolding AIDS scandal

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Last Wednesday was World AIDS Day. The focus this year is on women and girls. That's good, because almost half of all HIV-infected persons in the world are female. But if you are a woman concerned about HIV infection, I would suggest you avoid the UNAIDS program like the plague. Why? Because their advice just might kill you.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

As we know, there is no vaccine or drug that can stop AIDS. But there is one proven strategy. That approach, backed by the Bush administration, is known as "ABC." A stands for Abstinence, B means Be faithful, and C refers to Condoms.

The ABC concept has been carried out in Uganda over the past 15 years. There, a massive public education campaign was mounted. Billboard signs admonished would-be adulterers, "No Grazing." And religious organizations were tapped to play key roles (sorry about that, ACLU).

The results were impressive: the HIV infection rate in Uganda dropped from 15 percent to 5 percent. In 1991, 21 percent of pregnant women had the deadly HIV virus. Ten years later, that figure had dropped to 6 percent.

But the experts at UNAIDS don't believe in the ABCs. Why? Because they had a strategy with a name that appealed to erotomaniacs everywhere: Safe Sex. The Safe Sex advocates argue that since sexual activity is a fact of life, the best we can offer is condoms.

But two years ago the truth began to emerge.

Speakers at the 2002 Barcelona AIDS conference began openly admitting the failure of the Safe Sex approach. The U.N. Population Division offered this dispiriting assessment: "Much effort has been spent on promoting the prophylactic use of condoms as part of AIDS prevention. However, over the years, the condom has not become more popular among couples."

Why did Safe Sex fail? Well, knowing the condom failure rate is 15 percent, ask yourself this question: If an intimate partner of yours had AIDS, would you trust your life to a condom?

And why didn't the U.N. embrace the proven ABC strategy? The answer: it's a little too ... puritanical. Abstinence is something a Bible-thumping preacher might push but not the respectable public-health types at the UNAIDS.