PBS program on global health starts Nov. 1

[Roland98]

Sorry, I'm totally spamming this everywhere, but I'm really looking forward to this tomorrow. Be sure to check out Rx for Survival: a Global Health Challenge November 1-3 on your local PBS station. Program synopsis:

Over the past 150 years, stunning breakthroughs in public health have enabled humans to live longer, healthier and more productive lives. Clean drinking water, modern sanitation and good nutrition, along with the development of highly effective vaccines and antibiotics have increased average western life expectancy by an astonishing 35 years. But, the benefits of public health have yet to be extended to many of the poorest nations in the developing world.

Meanwhile, in the past two decades, infectious diseases that had nearly been conquered, such as tuberculosis, have come surging back, while devastating new diseases such as AIDS, SARS and West Nile Virus have emerged. Microbial resistance to many modern drugs is rising, threatening people everywhere. And in our world of globalized travel, the latest epidemic is only a plane ride away.

From vaccines to antibiotics, clean water to nutrition, bio-terror threats to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the six-part series Rx for Survival tells the compelling stories of global health champions and the communities they strive to protect. Employing both historical dramatic sequences and poignant current documentary stories, the series will showcase key milestones in public health history, such as the eradication of smallpox, alongside modern and future challenges, including SARS, a potential global flu pandemic and recovery from the Asian tsunami catastrophe. Brad Pitt narrates, and Experts including Jeffrey Sachs, the Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University; author Laurie Garrett; Harvey Fineberg, President of the National Academies of Sciences Institute of Medicine; Nils Daulaire, President of the Global Health Council; and Donald Hopkins, the Associate Executive Director of the Carter Center, will guide viewers through the ins and outs of this complex but fascinating story.

Topics include:

Disease Warriors
Rise of the Superbugs
Delivering the Goods
Deadly Messengers
Back to the Basics
How Safe Are We?

Global health, infectious disease, scientific experts, and Brad Pitt--what more could you ask for? Plus, I already know it's going to kick ass because a college friend of mine worked on the show, so I have no problem recommending it in advance.

[Petra]

Sadly, we don't get PBS; but hopefully they'll put it up online. I'll look out for it.


Thanks for the heads up!

[livius drusus]

I heard about this program recently, made a mental note to check my local listing and promptly forgot. Thank you for the reminder.

[alphamale]

Thanks to politically correct epidemiology, AIDs is more of an international threat.

[Roland98]

Originally Posted by alphamale

Thanks to politically correct epidemiology, AIDs is more of an international threat.

Boy, if I'd not already written you off as a troll, that would have cemented it for me. Thanks for your insightful comments.

[fragment]

Originally Posted by alphamale

Thanks to politically correct epidemiology, AIDs is more of an international threat

Care to explain this unusual assertion?

[cappuccino]

Who's Alphamale? Oh that's right, he's my very first one on my ignore list in the more than half decade since I've been perusing forums.

Thanks for the head up, I'll be checking out the program tonight!

[alphamale]

Originally Posted by fragment

Care to explain this unusual assertion?

Bush threw $15 billion down a rathole - AIDS prevention in Africa. AIDS prevention there is run by an international elite, you could call it the politicized AIDS industry. They have pushed condom use, the PC antidote to AIDS, and it's been a spectacular failure. (The reason is for cultural reasons African men won't use condoms.) An exception is Uganda which has a national program called "ABC" - Abstinence, Be faithful, and Condoms. The condom part is in common with the programs pushed in the rest of africa by the international AIDS elite. The abstinence/be faithful part is reponsible for the plummeting of the AIDS rate in Uganda. The AIDS elite sucks up U.S. tax money, has international conferences where they give each other awards and eat pate and drink champagne, and their polices are consigning tens of millions of africans to death.

[Corona688]

Originally Posted by alphamale

Bush threw $15 billion down a rathole - AIDS prevention in Africa. AIDS prevention there is run by an international elite, you could call it the politicized AIDS industry. They have pushed condom use, the PC antidote to AIDS, and it's been a spectacular failure.

Could you show material from the ABC program and the other program side-by-side? I'm curious about the differences in emphasis.

The thing is, I'm in Canada, a place about as PC as it's possible to get, and I've never seen condom use advocated without abstinence being advocated over it. It's never been politically incorrect here to say that abstinence is the safest option. A program that advocates condoms but doesn't advocate abstinence isn't PC, it's retarded.

[Roland98]

Originally Posted by alphamale

Bush threw $15 billion down a rathole - AIDS prevention in Africa. AIDS prevention there is run by an international elite, you could call it the politicized AIDS industry. They have pushed condom use, the PC antidote to AIDS, and it's been a spectacular failure. (The reason is for cultural reasons African men won't use condoms.) An exception is Uganda which has a national program called "ABC" - Abstinence, Be faithful, and Condoms. The condom part is in common with the programs pushed in the rest of africa by the international AIDS elite. The abstinence/be faithful part is reponsible for the plummeting of the AIDS rate in Uganda. The AIDS elite sucks up U.S. tax money, has international conferences where they give each other awards and eat pate and drink champagne, and their polices are consigning tens of millions of africans to death.

I assume you can back up your assertions that it was the "A,B" rather than the "C" that led to a decline in AIDS in Uganda with peer-reviewed research. Or did the "AIDS elite" block its publication?

Additionally, you are twisting the AIDS program in Africa beyond recognition. Those same "AIDS elite" that are pushing condoms are also pushing abstinence and monogamy--it's not an either/or situation. They're working on increasing sexual education, and breaking down barriers many African men have traditionally seen when it comes to using condoms. They work on educating all citizens about the untruths that have been spread about AIDS treatments--such as the myth that sleeping with virgins will cure a man of AIDS. They work on increasing screening for other STDs in the population, so that they can be treated, with the end result being that the population is less vulnterable to infection with HIV. They work on educating HIV+ mothers about the risk of breastfeeding their infants, and work to distribute anti-retroviral treatments to women during childbirth, in order to reduce their baby's chance of becoming infected.

And I think it's hilarious that you're so critical of Bush's AIDS policy, since even those leftists you hate so much also find it sorely lacking. Fully 30% of the funds go to faith-based organizations, which are able to refuse to promote condom use (or worse, actively denigrate condom use, spreading dangerous rumors that "condoms cause AIDS" or similar nonsense).

And I've never had pate or champagne at a conference. Last meeting I attended I even had to pay for my own soda at a cash bar. I guess that "AIDS elite" group has it better than we ordinary microbiologists.

[ms_ann_thrope]

Thanks for the reminder, I just set up my DVR to record the series!

P.S. Do not feed the troll

[Roland98]

Originally Posted by ms_ann_thrope

P.S. Do not feed the troll

Oh, it's not for him. Just in case any lurkers might think he has a point, or something. I fully expect his patented "you're too stupid for me to waste my vast intellect explaining things to you, and I can't be bothered to go and actually look up facts" response. I find it highly amusing, personally--a fascinating look at a psyche completely opposite of mine.

[viscousmemories]

Originally Posted by Roland98

Oh, it's not for him. Just in case any lurkers might think he has a point, or something.

I swear he's a liberal straight man, deliberately presenting unargued conservative talking points just to give people openings for devestating rebuttals. I've learned more from people explaining how he's wrong this last week than I have from all other posts combined.

[alphamale]

I assume you can back up your assertions that it was the "A,B" rather than the "C" that led to a decline in AIDS in Uganda with peer-reviewed research. Or did the "AIDS elite" block its publication?

OK - how about this (The A,B,C from the article is the same as I've used above.):

"The historical approach to HIV has been little A, little B and big C. The public health community at large did not believe in abstinence, but Africans were far ahead of the worldwide public health community on this," said Anne Peterson, a physician and the USAID director of global health who is responsible for overseeing U.S. anti-HIV programs. "Kids are willing and able to abstain from sex. Condoms play a role. They are better than nothing, but the core of Uganda's success story is big A, big B and little C."

http://www.usaid.gov/press/releases/...nda030313.html

[alphamale]

Uh, kinda quiet in here!

[Roland98]

Originally Posted by alphamale

OK - how about this (The A,B,C from the article is the same as I've used above.):

"The historical approach to HIV has been little A, little B and big C. The public health community at large did not believe in abstinence, but Africans were far ahead of the worldwide public health community on this," said Anne Peterson, a physician and the USAID director of global health who is responsible for overseeing U.S. anti-HIV programs. "Kids are willing and able to abstain from sex. Condoms play a role. They are better than nothing, but the core of Uganda's success story is big A, big B and little C."

http://www.usaid.gov/press/releases/...nda030313.html

Bloody hell. Do I really need to point out that the Washington Times is NOT peer-reviewed literature? And please note that I'm not denying that emphasis on abstinence and monogamy has reduced rates of HIV incidence--as mentioned, public health in the past decade has strongly pushed all of those as ways to reduce AIDS. Your allegation is that the push to increase condom usage has been a "spectacular failure." Even in the Times article, it says nothing of the sort.

[alphamale]

Originally Posted by Roland98

Bloody hell. Do I really need to point out that the Washington Times is NOT peer-reviewed literature? And please note that I'm not denying that emphasis on abstinence and monogamy has reduced rates of HIV incidence--as mentioned, public health in the past decade has strongly pushed all of those as ways to reduce AIDS. Your allegation is that the push to increase condom usage has been a "spectacular failure." Even in the Times article, it says nothing of the sort.

That whirring noise you hear is backpeddling in high gear. The times just quoted a physician who is head of the U.S. anti-HIV programs. Duh - maybe she doesn't know what she's talking about? Duh? The AIDS elite has had the ball for 20 years in Africa, and conferences and peer-reviewed papers notwithstanding, they've failed. AIDS continues to increase there.

[TomJoe]

Originally Posted by Roland98

I guess that "AIDS elite" group has it better than we ordinary microbiologists.

Well, things have evened out a bit lately, but when HIV research was the "Big Thing", NIH was giving out plenty of money to researchers who probably had no business receiving it ... merely because they proposed to work on HIV and AIDS related research. At least that's what I was told from two of my ex-committee members. Same thing happened (is happening) with bioterrorism and on a smaller scale it happened with genomics, though TIGR managed to practically monopolize that corner of funding, at least for bacterial genomes. I doubt any of us can say that NIH funding isn't, at least in part, granted with a "you help me, I'll help you" attitude because academic buddies/friends are often on grant review committees and it's not a blind/unbiased process. There is plenty of politics in science. Unfortunately.

Overall, I would say that if you're working with one of the "hot topics" there are more opportunities for funding. Doubt that translates into pate and champagne at meetings though.

In summary, at least in US research efforts, some money has been wasted by sub-par researchers, but in the long run I do not think it has made a significantly detrimental impact on the way HIV and AIDS treatment has occured worldwide.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

I swear he's a liberal straight man, deliberately presenting unargued conservative talking points just to give people openings for devestating rebuttals. I've learned more from people explaining how he's wrong this last week than I have from all other posts combined.

He certainly plays the offensive glee angle to such an extreme that he can only be doing it to foster antagonism towards conservatives...

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by Roland98

Oh, it's not for him. Just in case any lurkers might think he has a point, or something. I fully expect his patented "you're too stupid for me to waste my vast intellect explaining things to you, and I can't be bothered to go and actually look up facts" response. I find it highly amusing, personally--a fascinating look at a psyche completely opposite of mine.

He's too stupid for you to waste your impressive intellect explaining things to him, since he can't be bothered to listen to you.

[alphamale]

There is plenty of politics in science. Unfortunately.

No shit, as well as plenty of PC. About two years ago I did a post elsewhere that showed the NIH funding for PC diseases (i.e., AIDS and breast cancer) was vastly overloaded compared to non-PC diseases that kill many more people, e.g. heart disease and cancer, using the metric of deaths per year. I don't know how it is now, but at that time prostate cancer, which kills about as many men as breast cancer kills women, was starved for funds. It was well-known that young researchers wouldn't go into prostate cancer research, as there was no money. The same thing being true of private donations - how many times have you heard a company brag proudly that it is a contributor to the Susan G. Komen breast cancer fund. When there's a charity 10K run, it's almost always for PC diseases. The infuriating thing about this is that trainloads of tax money, MY money, has been used for a disease that is entirely preventable. As for people with other diseases, they can drop dead. One can actually die from political correctness.

[ms_ann_thrope]

Originally Posted by Roland98

Oh, it's not for him. Just in case any lurkers might think he has a point, or something.

LOL, good point -- I forgot that there might be people who don't have him on ignore. My bad!

[Corona688]

Originally Posted by alphamale

OK - how about this (The A,B,C from the article is the same as I've used above.):

"The historical approach to HIV has been little A, little B and big C. The public health community at large did not believe in abstinence, but Africans were far ahead of the worldwide public health community on this," said Anne Peterson, a physician and the USAID director of global health who is responsible for overseeing U.S. anti-HIV programs. "Kids are willing and able to abstain from sex. Condoms play a role. They are better than nothing, but the core of Uganda's success story is big A, big B and little C."

http://www.usaid.gov/press/releases/...nda030313.html

Wait a minute... this is the director of the US anti-HIV program? Not the Uganda one, or the other ones in Africa?

[Roland98]

Originally Posted by Corona688

Wait a minute... this is the director of the US anti-HIV program? Not the Uganda one, or the other ones in Africa?

She's the Asst. Administrator in the bureau of global health in the US agency for international development (appointed to that position by Bush). And while AIDS programs falls under her jurisdiction in Africa, so do about a dozen other disease programs. Additionally, she's not a scientist and has no research experience involving HIV--her experience is as a public health consultant. Finally, note that alpha quoted only one snippet from, again I'll emphasize, a freakin' newspaper article. Even from Dr. Peterson, other published remarks show that she indeed thinks condoms are important in controlling the disease (for example, this testimony.

In other news, what did anyone think of the program last night?

[viscousmemories]

Originally Posted by Roland98

In other news, what did anyone think of the program last night?

Yeah, right. And miss House and Law & Order: SUV?



I promise I'll watch parts two and three tonight and tomorrow, though.