Brazil Takes a Different Approach to AIDS
You might have noticed the news this week, the AIDS rate in the United States turns out to be higher than they thought. There are forty percent more new cases of HIV discovered each year than previously estimated. According to The Post, 56,300 new HIV infections were reported in 2006 in the US. The good news is that that's about half what the rate was in the 1980s, the bad news is that it's higher than it was in the mid-1990s.
But did you see this story, about how Brazil is treating AIDS?
The article explains that the Brazilian government buys great quantities of medicines and so is able to negotiate a good price with drug companies. Some companies won't give them a break, however, for instance:
Man oh man. If I understand this right, they're basically pirating AIDS medication.
And look at that last sentence again: "Between our trade and our health, we have chosen to look after our health," President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said at the time.
Did you realize there are still world leaders who think like that?
But did you see this story, about how Brazil is treating AIDS?
Brazil, long considered a model country in the fight against AIDS, depends on cheap retroviral treatments secured from the big drug companies after fierce struggle.
That fight goes on today, with Brazil also manufacturing its own generic anti-AIDS medicine.
The strategy has created friction with the pharmaceutical groups investing billions in new anti-virals -- but it has also proved successful in this vast country, population 190 million, which has a third of Latin America's HIV-positive patients.
Around 32,000 new HIV/AIDS carriers are detected every year, a proportion that has stayed roughly the same for the past two decades.
That in itself is a triumph for a nation which was once predicted to be on the same path as parts of Africa where AIDS transmission has exploded, creating a veritable crisis.
The director of the Brazilian health ministry's AIDS program, Mariangela Simao, told AFP that in 2002, the prevelance rate of HIV/AIDS per 100,000 people was 22.2 cases. In 2006, it was 17.5, "which confirms a slightly lower trend," she said. Brazil's success in AIDS fight depends on cheap drugs
The article explains that the Brazilian government buys great quantities of medicines and so is able to negotiate a good price with drug companies. Some companies won't give them a break, however, for instance:
Last year, Brazil failed to secure a deal with the US pharmaceutical Merck for the HIV retroviral efavirenz.
It decided to break the patent on the drug -- the first time it has done so -- and is importing it from India pending its own generic production.
The 30 million dollars per year it is saving by doing so is being reinvested in HIV prevention.
"Between our trade and our health, we have chosen to look after our health," President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said at the time.
Man oh man. If I understand this right, they're basically pirating AIDS medication.
And look at that last sentence again: "Between our trade and our health, we have chosen to look after our health," President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said at the time.
Did you realize there are still world leaders who think like that?
posted by JimK at 8:32 AM
10 Comments:
"The good news is that that's about half what the rate was in the 1980s, the bad news is that it's higher than it was in the mid-1990s."
And the significant news is that the increase is due to gay promiscuity.
Wow! Brazil spending 30 million a year on prevention. We spent 750 million a year domestically and billions internationally. Yet gay behavior has gotten worse.
Better to spend it reparative therapy research.
You'll lie about anything to denigrate LGBT people, won't you?
Reparative therapy is ineffective at changing orientation but very effective at causing harm to those who try it. And if you doubt that's true, then provide us with a link to one scientific study published in a peer reviewed medical journal that found even a 50% success rate.
And as to the HIV/AIDS rate, just yesterday The Washington Post reported the CDC's findings:
Even though the number of Americans living with HIV has risen by more than a quarter-million people since 1998 -- largely because of life-extending antiretroviral drugs -- the number of new cases each year has declined slightly over that period....HIV incidence has been unchanged since about 2000.
"You'll lie about anything to denigrate LGBT people, won't you?"
You are a liar of pathological dimensions, AB.
"Reparative therapy is ineffective at changing orientation but very effective at causing harm to those who try it."
Read again what I said. I said research not implementation.
"And if you doubt that's true, then provide us with a link to one scientific study published in a peer reviewed medical journal that found even a 50% success rate."
What a fallacy! No research can prove something can't be done. We haven't cured cancer or AIDS or the common cold. No one says "hey, man, we have proven cancer can't be cured". No, we keep trying.
"And as to the HIV/AIDS rate, just yesterday The Washington Post reported the CDC's findings:
Even though the number of Americans living with HIV has risen by more than a quarter-million people since 1998 -- largely because of life-extending antiretroviral drugs -- the number of new cases each year has declined slightly over that period....HIV incidence has been unchanged since about 2000."
What is clear, you pathological liar, is that gay infections are increasing. Your "clever" wordplay has fooled no one and proved what lengths you'll go to avoid admitting that homosexuality represents a public health risk.
"Reparative therapy is ineffective at changing orientation but very effective at causing harm to those who try it"
If it is so effective at causing harm, there must be tons of documentation of this harm.
Let's see your peer-reviewed and replicated studies documenting this "very effective" harm.
You're a liar.
Let's see your peer-reviewed and replicated studies documenting this "very effective" harm.
Ah what a clever tactic, providing no response to my request, but asking me to provide studies supporting my view instead. We all see you have not been able to find one single peer-reviewed study of conversion therapy demonstrating a success rate over 50% but instead asked me to provide you with even more. You brought up conversion therapy -- where's your proof it's anything but snake oil? Provide links to some studies or admit there is no research showing success rates above 50%.
As far as studies that have demonstrated conversion therapy harms clients, let's start with this one:
Changing sexual orientation: A consumers' report. Shidlo, Ariel; Schroeder, Michael
Current issue feed Professional Psychology: Research and Practice. 2002 Jun Vol 33(3) 249-259
The results indicated that a majority failed to change sexual orientation, and many reported that they associated harm with conversion interventions.
And there is this review of the scientific studies on conversion therapy that shows even family and friends of clients may be harmed: The Psuedo-science of Sexual Conversion Therapy, Douglas C. Haldeman, PhD
The studies cited above allege that a typical success rate for conversion therapies is about 30%. Surprisingly, those researchers never question what might have happened to the other 70%...Some - but not all - conversion therapy clients are harmed..."ex-ex-gays", as they are sometimes known, have gone through a religious prayer-based program or a talk-oriented therapy of some sort. Such individuals often experience continued depression over their continued homosexuality, compounded with a sense of shame over having failed at conversion therapy...Very often individuals and family members who have been caught in the conversion therapy process need counseling of their own.
And what have you got in the way of studies showing this therapy might work on people who are not involved in the conversion industry themselves? Oh yeah, nothing.
"Ah what a clever tactic, providing no response to my request, but asking me to provide studies supporting my view instead"
Not near as clever as your demanding I provide evidence for something I didn't assert.
I said they should do research into finding a reparative therapy. I didn't say there was one.
Could you be more specific about this harm? Depression is not unusual for gays.
I said they should do research into finding a reparative therapy. I didn't say there was one.
Then you agree that reparative or conversion therapy is not effective.
Could you be more specific about this harm?
Sure, I don't mind repeating what I already posted about the harm of conversion therapy back in January 2007:
Here is Haldeman's review of conversion therapy studies and more detail from Shidlo and Schroeder's study:
"Early behavioral work in conversion therapy operated on the rationale that if certain predetermined (homosexual) behaviors could be extinguished, and if "adaptive" (heterosexual) behaviors could be substituted, the individual's sexual orientation would change. Such early behavioral studies primarily employed aversive conditioning techniques, usually involving electric shock or nausea-inducing drugs during presentation of same-sex erotic visual stimuli. Typically, the cessation of the aversive stimuli would be accompanied by the presentation of opposite-sex erotic visual stimuli, to supposedly strengthen heterosexual feelings in the sexual response hierarchy. Some programs attempted to augment aversive conditioning techniques with a social learning component -- assertiveness training, how to ask women out on dates, and so on (Feldman & McCulloch, 1965). Later, the same investigators modified their approach, calling it "anticipatory avoidance conditioning," which enabled subjects to avoid electrical shock when viewing slides of same-sex nudes (Feldman, 1966). One wonders how such a stressful situation would permit feelings of sexual responsiveness in any directions; nevertheless, a 58% "cure" rate was claimed. Again, however, the outcome criteria were defined as suppression of homosexuality, and an increased capacity for heterosexual behavior. It is not uncommon for homosexuals who have undergone aversive treatments to notice a temporary sharp decline in their homosexual responsiveness.
As with aversive techniques, the “covert sensitization” method calls for the use of noxious stimuli paired with same-sex erotic imagery. In this procedure, however, the subject does not actually experience the electric shock or induced vomiting, but is instructed to imagine such stimuli (Cautela, 1967). Outcomes here are limited to single-case studies, and are not generalizable.
More recent studies suggest that aversive interventions might extinguish homosexual responsiveness, but do little to promote alternative orientation. One investigator suggests that the poor outcomes of conversion treatments are due to the fact that they “disregard the complex learned repertoire and topography of homosexual behavior” (Faustman, 1976). Other recent studies echo the finding that “aversive therapies in homosexuality do not alter subjects’ sexual orientation, but serve only to reduce sexual arousal” (McConaghy, 1981). This pattern is reflected in yet another study suggesting that behavioral conditioning decreases homosexual orientation, but does not elevate heterosexual interest (Rangaswami, 1982). In fact, such methods applied to anyone else might be called by another name: torture. Individuals undergoing such treatments do not emerge heterosexually inclined; rather, they become shamed, conflicted, and fearful about their homosexual feelings."
Haldeman, D. (1991). Sexual orientation conversion therapy for gay men and lesbians: A scientific examination. In J. Gonsiorek & J. Weinrich (Eds.), Homosexuality: Research Implications for Public Policy. pp. 149-160. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
"In 2002, researchers Ariel Shidlo and Michael Schroeder recruited 182 men and 20 women for a study on the negative effects of reparative therapy. They found that 176 subjects said reparative therapy was harmful, while 26 said it was successful."
http://washtimes.com/metro/20050926-095613-8795r.htm
Psychological Harm
Participants reported perceiving the conversion intervention as harmful in the following areas:
Depression, suicidal ideation and attempts. Many participants spoke of depressed feelings resulting from the conversion intervention. Some attributed the negative effect to the event of having being told by the therapist—and their believing—that they had chosen a homosexual orientation:
I felt more depressed after I did the therapy. The negative aspect was that I really felt it was all up to me, a choice I had made, and because of that choice I was condemned to being in this pain forever. This need for unnatural affections.
Other participants said that they tried not to be homosexual, and when change failed to come or they experienced a resurgence of same-sex desire, they then became depressed. Some participants spoke of suicidal ideation and attempts:
I wanted to die. I felt as though I would never change and be “cured.” It harmed my self-esteem very much. I wanted to die. I felt as though it [the conversion therapy] took away who I was. . . . It took away my dignity.
One female participant described her experience of conversion therapy as an experience akin to being killed:
I attempted suicide with pills. I just wanted to die. Part of it had to do with the feeling that I was dying already because of what the nun [conversion therapist] was doing to me. It felt like she was killing me, trying to rid me of my lesbian self.
In examining the data, we distinguished between participants who had a history of being suicidal before conversion therapy and those who did not. Twenty-five participants had a history of suicide attempts before conversion therapy, 23 during conversion therapy, and 11 after conversion therapy. We took the subgroup of participants who reported suicide attempts and looked at suicide attempts preintervention, during intervention, and postintervention to see if there was any suggestive pattern. We found that 11 participants had reported suicide attempts since the end of conversion interventions. Of these, only 3 had attempted prior to conversion therapy. Of the 11 participants, 3 had attempted during conversion therapy.
Self-esteem and internalized homophobia. Many participants linked the iatrogenic effects of conversion therapy on their self-esteem to the therapist’s intervention of devaluing their homosexual orientation and providing defamatory and false information about gay and lesbian persons, and their lives, relationships, and communities (see Schroeder & Shidlo, 2001). This is consistent with the portrayal of lesbians and gay men in the conversion therapy literature (cf. Nicolosi, 1991, 1993, 2000; Socarides, 1978, 1995). It seems incontrovertible that an intervention that frames a homosexual orientation as undesirable, sick, and evil, when applied to individuals who fail to change their homosexual orientation, will have iatrogenic effects by virtue of exacerbating self-hatred, poor self-esteem, and internalized homophobia. One participant reported:
I think it harmed me. . . . It reinforced all my own negative stereotypes about homosexuality and my being a failure and an inadequate human being.
Distorted perception of homosexual orientation. We found that some conversion therapists and patients appeared to attribute, without substantiation, many—sometimes all—negative traits and life events to a homosexual orientation. For many of our participants, homosexuality became a receptacle of all that was dysfunctional and undesirable. This created unrealistic demands that a change of sexual orientation would resolve unrelated personal and interpersonal problems.
Intrusive imagery and sexual dysfunction. A group of participants who underwent cognitive behavior therapies, especially those who had aversive conditioning, reported long-term harm as indicated by the intrusion of disturbing images formed in conversion therapy. Some male participants also complained of sexual impotence:
In a sex act, I can imagine . . . my wife . . . and I find that disturbing, because it doesn’t belong there. He [the psychologist] taught me to do that a long time ago. The first time I attempted to have anal intercourse with my lover, I couldn’t because I would get flashbacks of my life. The same way when I was in the behavior mod program, when I was in the relationship with that guy, my therapist would have me envision [wife’s name] there, versus the guy being there; I was to envision her, not him, while having sex with him. That was a mind bender. . . . I still have it with me sometimes. Not as bad as I used to, but I still get a flashback; either it takes away from the moment or destroys the moment. . . . When I’m involved in a sex act, sometimes I really have to try to push out thoughts in my mind that he planted, or I will not be able to achieve an erection or ejaculation.
Unanimously, participants reported that aversive conditioning had especially destructive effects. They experienced aversive conditioning as punitive and degrading, and they responded with fear and shame:
It was a pretty humiliating experience. It was sitting in somebody’s office and unzip your pants and strapped to electrodes. And [then] walk out to the waiting-room with burn marks in my arms—the size of quarters. Being in his presence [and] having to look at these pictures [pornographic images]. It was embarrassing.
Monitoring of gender-deviant mannerisms. Some respondents spoke about an increase in worrying that they appeared “gay-acting.” This is not surprising, as a central component of some conversion therapies is to increase stereotypically gender-appropriate behavior. Some participants reported hypervigilance over displaying incongruous gender traits, resulting in an increase in paranoid-like worries and fears that they would not “pass” as being heterosexual.
Social and Interpersonal Harm
Many participants spoke of having experienced significant harm in their relationships and social functioning in the following areas:
Family of origin. Many respondents reported that conversion therapy significantly harmed relationships with their parents. These participants reported that they were instructed to blame their parents for their homosexual orientation and were taught to identify failures in parenting as causal to their sexual orientation. Participants spoke of anger, alienation, hatred, and other negative emotions toward their parents as results of the conversion therapy:
I really wanted to believe . . . [my therapist about the cause of my homosexuality]. So for a while, it added to my hatred of my father. . . During that period I broke off relationship with my father to get away from that influence.
Alienation, loneliness, and social isolation. Many participants complained of experiencing social isolation and loneliness as a consequence of conversion therapy. This occurred even in individuals who had many ex-gay or heterosexual social supports. Participants attributed their loneliness to hiding that they were still homosexual:
[The conversion therapy] made me feel like a freak. Made me feel about it even worse than I did before [the conversion therapy]. Consequently, I couldn’t reach out to anyone about it. . . . I had no one to talk to, and didn’t feel I could be open with that therapist.
Interference with intimate relationships. This included loss of same-sex partners or missed opportunities to commit to long-term relationships with same-sex persons whom participants were in love with. Some therapists advised their clients to break off intimate relationships with same-sex partners. Long-lasting exacerbation of shame about sexual orientation interfered with lesbian and gay relationships after treatment failure:
It changed my sexual life as well. . . . I feel that it has been a very slow process to having a normal sexual life as a gay male. Subconsciously or consciously I still view being gay as bad, or something you should be guilty about. . . . I think it made me less of a sexual homosexual.
Loss of social supports when entering and leaving the ex-gay community. Upon entering ex-gay support systems, many participants were instructed to distance themselves from lesbian and gay friends. A converse loss occurred when leaving the ex-gay community; many reported being rejected for abandoning the struggle against homosexuality.
Fear of being a child abuser. Some male participants reported that conversion therapy created in them a fear of becoming child abusers and subsequently interfered with their relationships with children:
It really screwed me up, because these thoughts were put in my head that I was attracted to little boys, and I’m not. I was very angry at that... I had very young nephews, I was afraid to be around them, afraid to play with them.
Delay of developmental tasks due to not coming out as gay or lesbian earlier. Many participants reported that the years invested in conversion therapy (over a decade for some) delayed opportunities to have intimate relationships and develop social skills. They complained of difficulties in distinguishing between intimacy, friendship, sex, and love:
It delayed my being a gay man once again. It preserved the false notion that sexual orientation could be changed and added more years to my time in the closet. I lost a lot of my life as a result of this.
Spiritual Harm
The majority (66%) of our sample was religious. Many who considered themselves to be treatment failures reported experiencing a negative impact on their religiosity. We identified several negative outcomes in this group: (a) complete loss of faith, (b) sense of betrayal by religious leaders, (c) anger at clinicians who introduced punitive and shaming concepts of God, and (d) excommunication.
I had this spiritual foundation that therapy fXXXed up. God became this very punishment. In church you get homophobia twice a year, in therapy it was every week. God was a punishing-homophobic figure, and I became an evil sinner every time.
http://psycnet.apa.org/?fa=main.doiLanding&doi=10.1037/0735-7028.33.3.249
Aunt Bea
January 17, 2007 11:12 AM
Reparative therapy is significantly more deleterious to health than infection with HIV. The latter can be treated, the former is purposely harmful.
“Your "clever" wordplay has fooled no one and proved what lengths you'll go to avoid admitting that homosexuality represents a public health risk.”
As I recently said in another thread, WHICH YOU IGNORED:
“You’re just trying to link male-unprotected-anal-receptive-sex-with-someone-who-is-HIV+ -- WITH -- same-sex attraction itself.
Since when have “gay advocates,” or the “gay agenda” for that matter, ever argued that males who have unprotected anal receptive sex with someone who is HIV+, are not at an increased risk of contracting the AIDS virus?”
But when the subject really IS about a behavior, then suddenly it’s not the behavior that’s a public health risk, it’s same-sex attraction itself.
I am convinced that if an AIDS vaccine or cure came along, you’d be against it, for the simple reason that you would no longer be able to equate the disease with gay people.
Which is one reason I think you people are against gay marriage - it get’s in the way of characterizing all gay people as mindless sex fiends.
“Let's see your peer-reviewed and replicated studies documenting this "very effective" harm.”
Here’s several thousand more examples.
Oh that's right, never mind, I forgot about your motto: “Satan get thee facts behind me!”
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