The Religious Consultation
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New York Times , May 19, 2005 EDITORIAL: Preserving
the Global AIDS Fund The world has two big programs that fight AIDS in poor countries. One, created by President Bush, will spend more than a billion dollars in 15 hard-hit nations this year. It is a very important lifesaving initiative, but it could do even more. The pharmaceutical industry has kept it from buying cheap generic versions of AIDS medicines. And the religious right has pushed it toward abstinence-only programs and away from the people most likely to become infected: prostitutes, gays and intravenous-drug users. Fortunately, there is also the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which has been free to do the work America shuns. But its ability to continue to do so is at risk. In April, the Global Fund's board set up a committee for policy and strategy that is so powerful it has been described as a shadow executive board. The fund's board is choosing a leader for the supercommittee this week, but at the moment there is one candidate: Randall Tobias, who runs Mr. Bush's AIDS program. Mr. Tobias may be approved to avoid angering the United States, the fund's largest donor, but the risk to its independence is too great. Mr. Tobias did the right thing this week by quashing, at least for now, an effort by American religious conservatives to make the thousands of groups getting grants from the Global Fund sign a pledge that they oppose prostitution. Many groups would have refused to sign, not because they favor prostitution, but because they see a pledge as an ideological test that would hinder their ability to help women who are forced into sex work. On many other occasions, however, Mr. Tobias has been quite willing to follow the agenda of the religious right. Last fall, he approved a grant for a program run by a well-connected conservative foundation to promote sexual abstinence among African youth - even though the evaluation panel had ruled it undeserving, The Washington Post reported in February. He has disparaged scientific evidence that condoms are effective in preventing the spread of AIDS. And Mr. Tobias, a former chief executive of the drug company Eli Lilly, has set up numerous roadblocks in the path of generic drugs. If Mr. Tobias ran the policy committee, religious conservatives would have a direct channel into the Global Fund. Even if Mr. Tobias wanted to, he might not be able to resist that pressure. It is bad enough that the American program ties the hands of those fighting AIDS. It would be far worse if the Global Fund did so, too. << New York Times – 05/19/05 >>
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