UMKC - SDI
2007 / Stanley – Walters Lab
Anti-Prostitution Pledge Negative Index
AT: AIDS ADV......
AT: AIDS ADVANTAGE / AIDS EXAGGERATED......
AT: AIDS ADVANTAGE /AIDS NOT CAUSE EXTINCTION......
AT: AIDS ADVANTAGE / AIDS WILL NOT MUTATE......
AT: AIDS ADVANTAGE / HIV DOESN’T CAUSE AIDS......
HARMS REDUCTION BAD = NORMALIZE PROSTITUTION......
HARMS REDUCTION = INCREASE IN TRAFFICKING / DISEASE......
HARMS REDUCTION = VIOLENCE......
AT: SOLVENCY......
ABOLITION GOOD......
AT: RIGHTS ADVANTAGE......
AT: SOFT POWER /SOFT POWER NOW- AIDS SPECIFIC......
AT: SOFT POWER / SOFT POWER HIGH- GENERIC......
AT: SOFT POWER / PLAN NOT INCREASE SOFT POWER......
AT: SOFT POWER / SOFT POWER FAILS......
POLITICS LINKS / PLAN IS BIPARTISAN......
POLITICS LINKS / POLITICAL CAPITAL......
AT: AIDS ADV
Harms reduction approach fails. The only way to decrease the spread of AIDS is to focus on abolishing prostitution.
Jeffrey J. Barrows, D.O., FACOOG, is the Director of Medical Education International (MEI), a ministry of the Christian Medical Association
September 9, 2005 HIV and Prostitution: What’s the Answer?
You may not be reading about it in the news, but there is an ethical and political battle being fought right now over how best to approach the problem of the connection between prostitution and the global spread of HIV/AIDS. I want to first sketch out the political setting before delving into a discussion of the ethics involved.
The Bush administration believes that the best approach is to work for the abolition of prostitution because it harms both the individuals working as prostitutes and society as a whole. The Christian Medical Association and over 100 other groups agree. This support was expressed recently when a letter was sent to President Bush, signed by these 100+ women’s, health, and policy organizations, encouraging him to stand firm in his policy to enforce the U.S. government’s current abolitionist approach to prostitution. This position was also previously adopted by Congress when it passed the “United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act of 2003.” This Act stipulated that any organization applying for federal funds to fight HIV/AIDS must have “a policy explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking.” This congressional policy was strengthened further when President Bush issued a National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD-22) fully supporting the abolitionist approach to prostitution and related activities.
The letter of support for the President’s opposition to prostitution was in direct response to a letter sent to the President in May 2005, by over 175 groups—International Planned Parenthood, ACT UP, Feminist Majority, etc.—asking the President not to enforce the anti-prostitution pledge. These groups advocate a “harm reduction” approach to prostitution and HIV/AIDS. In other words, their answer to the clear association between prostitution and the ongoing spread of HIV/AIDS is to provide prostitutes with condoms and screen them regularly for sexually transmitted infections.
The harm reduction approach is shortsighted, doomed to failure, and ethically lacking. It fails to recognize that many prostitutes are unable to negotiate condom use with their clients but often are forced to provide whatever services the client may want. In addition, it is common knowledge that prostitutes are often paid more if they agree to have sex without a condom. In fact, a study in Calcutta India found that prostitutes who regularly use condoms suffer a 79% reduction in their earnings over prostitutes who do not use condoms.1 A 79% loss of income is a huge motivator to forego the use of condoms!
Furthermore, advocating regular testing for sexually transmitted infections ignores the biological characteristic of latency. Latency refers to the fact that every type of infection—including sexually transmitted infections—has a period of time before it begins to manifest itself. In addition, for every test performed to identify a sexually transmitted infection there is a period of time between when the infection occurs and when the test will be able to detect it. This is called the “window period.” According to the CDC, for HIV testing, the usual window period is 4-6 weeks, but may be as long as 3 months.2
Even if a prostitute is being tested every week for HIV, she will test negative for at least the first 4-6 weeks and possibly the first 12 weeks after being infected. If we assume that he or she takes only 4 weeks to become positive, because there is an additional lag time of 1-2 weeks to get the results back, there will be at best a window period of 6 weeks for a prostitute. The average prostitute services between 10-15 clients per day. This means that while the test is becoming positive and the results are becoming known, that prostitute may expose up to 630 clients to HIV. This is under the best of circumstances with testing every week and a four-week window period. It also assumes that the prostitute will quit working as soon as he or she finds out the test is HIV positive, which is highly unlikely. This is not the best approach for actually reducing harm. Instead, in order to slow the global spread of HIV/AIDS we should focus our efforts on abolishing prostitution.
AT: AIDS ADVANTAGE /AIDS EXAGGERATED
AIDS statistics are wrong- Reported cases are way overestimated
The Nation November 16, 2000
Statistics quoted by most development agencies suggest millions of Kenyans are sick and dying. Expert opinion is questioning the authenticity of these figures. About thirty per cent of all Kenyans (8.4 million) are infected with tuberculosis, with about 16,700 dying every year. Seventy per cent or 20 million are exposed to malaria every year with 26,000 children below five years dying every year (or 72 children a day).More than 2.2 million Kenyans are infected with HIV, with 240,000 dying every year from Aids Between 20 and 30 per cent of Kenyans are either suffering from typhoid or are carriers of the disease, of which a third (over 1.9million) eventually die even after seeking medical treatment. The figures are far much above the official figures given by the Central Bureau of Statistics(CBS). Take for instance Aids. According to the estimates, it is said to be killing 182,500 people annually.The total reported deaths, from all causes, by CBS were185,576 in 1997 and 221,543in 1998. Consequently this would mean only about 3000 people died from other causes than Aids in 1997. The head of Health Information Systems at the Ministry of Health Mr. Godfrey M Baltazar says of the quoted HIV/Aids cases: "These estimates are subject to wide margins of error. They are based on blood samples taken from pregnant women attending antenatal clinics in a few sentinel sites, all of which are in urban areas and assumed to be representative of the entire Kenyan population, which they are not. Their extrapolation to non-pregnant women, males and the rural population are based on assumptions which have little empirical foundation." Until mid this year, Mr. Baltazar was an epidemiological officer at National Aids and STI Control Council ( NASCOP) . He argued that in the absence of a population or community survey, these figures cannot be accepted as credible. Kenya has not done any. "Such surveys are very critical as this is the only way to validate the data." Health statistics estimated are mainly done by the WHO. It is said that after the ministry forwards the figures to WHO. The latter will then subject the data to farther mathematical processes, apparently to take care of the 'low under- reporting rates' of government agencies. This has in the past created glaring discrepancies between government figures and those floated by private or non- governmental agencies.This argument is strongly supported by Prof Charles Geshekter of California State University, USA who accuses the players for deliberately adopting very misleading ways of determining HIV cases in Africa that generate very wrong and scary figures. In Africa, the Western public officials determinethe presence of Aids based on a set of symptoms rather than on the confirmation by blood testing, the standards used in America and Europe. In Africa, Aids is defined, according to WHO, as a combination of fever, persistent cough, diarrhoea and a 10 per cent loss of body weight. "It is impossible to distinguish these common symptoms from those of malaria, TB or the indigenous diseasesof the impoverished lands." argues Geshekter
AT: AIDS ADVANTAGE /AIDS EXAGGERATED
AIDS as a epidemic is exaggerated
Rainer Hennig(afrol News editor)2004 “Is the African AIDS pandemic a bluff?”, Afrol news, accessed 6/29/07)
The Austrian specialist of reproductive medicine, Christian Fiala, leads the growing group of researchers questioning the extent of the AIDS disaster in Africa. He holds that - while there indeed is a worrying prevalence of HIV on the continent - the numbers presented by the UN agency UNAIDS and national health authorities are highly inflated.Mr Fiala, in a recent reader's letter to the prestigious 'British Medical Journals', calls for "sense, not hysteria" regarding the AIDS epidemic in Africa. The claimed high numbers of victims to the epidemic were only "based on estimates and certain assumptions," he holds. Fellow researchers hold that the Austrian researcher and the British journal are "courageous" just for publishing the critique. Already in 1994, a study published in the 'Journal of Infectious Diseases' had concluded that the HIV tests used were "possibly not sufficient for the diagnosis of HIV infection inCentral Africa." This unreliability of HIV tests, according to Mr Fiala, had later been "confirmed" in several newer medical research studies.In Africa in particular, writes Mr Fiala, "people have a high number of antibodies against infectious diseases or against foreign proteins after receiving blood or dirty injections. Some of these antibodies may lead to a false positive HIV test." But among the millions of Africans given the diagnosis AIDS, only very few have actually been tested by these "unreliable tests". AIDS diagnosis on the continent with the highest prevalence is done by other standards than elsewhere, something that the World Health Organisation (WHO) had decided on in 1985, given the high costs of testing.According to the WHO's Africa definition, "AIDS is diagnosed on the basis of non-specific clinical symptoms and without an HIV test," Mr Fiala says. Even today, "people with for example continuous diarrhoea, weight loss and itching are declared to be suffering from AIDS. But also the typical symptoms for tuberculosis - fever, weight loss and coughing - are officially considered to be AIDS, even without an HIV test," holds the Austrian specialist.In order to get a total estimate of AIDS cases, WHO at it's headquarters in Genevaadds the registered AIDS sufferers to a high number of unreported cases, which WHO presumes to have occurred, explains Mr Fiala. "Thus in November 1997, the WHO announced that since its previous report in July 1996, there had been a further 4.5 million AIDS cases in Africa. In this period, however, only 120,000 AIDS sufferers were actually registered."Further proof for what the critics of the 'AIDS pandemic' call "misleading" prevalence numbers was given by the case of Uganda. Ten years ago, Uganda was internationally recognised as the country worst struck by the disease, with local prevalence rates reaching 30 percent. Now, the Kampala government celebrates itself as an example of how to fight AIDS, claiming that its energetic campaigns had turned the tide. Mr Fiala considers the Ugandan success story a bluff, assuming that AIDS prevalence never could have been as high as originally claimed. Poor testing methods and failed statistics had inflated the numbers. He finds proof in Uganda's newest population census and household surveys. During the last decade, the assumed high AIDS prevalence of the early 1990s should have led to increased mortality in Uganda. This is not the case. The country's mortality rate has in fact declined, especially due to lower infant and childhood mortality rates. Uganda's population now grows at an average annual rate of 3.4 percent - the highest ever. Further, he contradicts Ugandan government claims that the numerous campaigns against AIDS could have led to a change in sexual behaviour and thus to a fall in HIV infections. The national household survey of 2002 shows that Ugandan girls have the same sexual behaviour as they had ten and thirty years ago. Further, protection against AIDS has not improved - only 2 percent of Ugandan women regularly use a condom. The South African writer Rian Malan in a recent article in the UK-based 'Spectator' makes similar conclusions regarding the AIDS pandemic in Southern Africa. In his article "Africa Isn't Dying of AIDS," Mr Malan reacts to UNAIDS claims that almost 30 million Africans now have HIV/AIDS. But, says Mr Malan, "the figures are computer-generated estimates and they appear grotesquely exaggerated when set against population statistics." In Botswana, the country with the world's highest AIDS prevalence, several reports had suggested that population had dropped from 1.4 million in 1993 to under a million currently, due to the AIDS pandemic. Not true, says Mr Malan. "Botswana has just concluded a census that shows population growing at about 2.7 percent a year, in spite of what is usually described as the worst AIDS problem on the planet. Total population has risen to 1.7 million in just a decade. If anything, Botswana is experiencing a minor population explosion," the South African writer concludes. He continues slaughtering UN and national statistics on South African AIDS deaths.
AT: AIDS ADVANTAGE /AIDS NOT CAUSE EXTINCTION
AIDS will stabilize, not cause extinction
Susan Hunter(an independent consultant to certain agencies of the United Nations)2003BLACK DEATH: AIDS IN AFRICA, p. 214
History tells us that epidemics last a long, long time.HIV/AIDS will be around for at least the next two or three hundred years, so management policies must keep this in mind.The trajectory of HIV/AIDSgrowth that started in the late 1980s will continue until the middle of the twenty-first century, withpeaks occurring at different times in different places. Then, after a longplateau, there will be a long drop, and AIDS will stabilize worldwide at a lower level and be with us permanently as an endemic, chronic disease.
AIDS is self-correcting – high infection rates cause decline because of awareness
Avert.org 2005 (“Aids around the world,” november 24
It has also been noted thatacountry with a very high HIV prevalence rate will often see this rate eventually stabilise, and even decline. In some casesthis indicates, among other things, that people are beginning to change risky behaviour patterns, because they have seen and known people who have been killed by AIDS.Fear is theworst and lastway of changing people's behaviourand by the time this happens it is usually too late to save a huge number of that country's population.
AIDS won’t cause extinction – it’s not that kind of virus
Preston 1995 (Richard, NewRepublic, “the plague year,” July 24 l/n)
Some of theblamefor this transformation clearly belongs with aids, the epidemic that has more or less shattered the public's confidence in the power of science. But aids has never been seen as a threat to the entire species. In fact, aids is exactly the opposite of the kind of random, uncontrollable epidemic that seems to have now seized the popular imagination.The truth is that it is very hard to find an adequate explanation for the current American obsession. Joshua Lederberg's comment that we are worse off today than a century ago is proof only that he is a better student of microbiology than of history.
AIDS will not cause extinction- THAT IS A SCIENTIFIC FACT
George Caldwell(PhD in Biology and Political Science)2003
Disease could wipe out mankind.[sic] It is clear that HIV/AIDS will not accomplish this – it is not even having a significant impact on slowing the population explosion in Africa, where prevalence rates reach over thirty percent in some countries. But a real killer plague could certainly wipe out mankind. The interesting thing aboutplagues, however, is that theyneverseem to kill everyone – historically, the mortality rate is never 100 per cent(from disease alone). Based on historical evidence, it would appear that, while plagues may certainly reduce human population, they are not likely to wipe it out entirely. This notwithstanding, the gross intermingling of human beings and other species that accompanies globalization nevertheless increases the likelihood of global diseases to high levels.
AIDS can’t cause extinction – it will kill everyone susceptible to it then go away
Preker 2004 (Alexander et. Al, Human development network, “addressing hiv/aids in east asia and the pacific,”
As can be seen, in the initial period of R0 > 1, the prevalence increases exponentially. However, as the number of people susceptible to the disease are “used up” by the epidemic, the reproductive rate begins to fall. If no new susceptible groups enter the population, then the infection will fade away. Given the long duration of HIV/AIDS, there is continuing growth in new susceptible populations, making extinction unlikely.