Root cause of AIDS being ignored, says activist
Jim Brown - OneNewsNow - 8/7/2008 11:25:00 AM
The 17th International AIDS Conference will wrap up in Mexico City on Friday (August 8). In attendance is California mega-church pastor Rick Warren who says HIV-AIDS is a "global pandemic" that the church can help solve by "show[ing] compassion, kindness and the love of Christ." However, Peter LaBarbera says while he commends the idea of a church-based effort to fight AIDS in Africa, he is troubled that many church and political leaders are afraid to take on the primary source of the AIDS problem in the United States.
"We know that homosexual behavior and homosexual promiscuity are linked to AIDS. A very obvious connection is brought out in the CDC statistics [see related video report], and yet nobody in any position of authority -- and that would include the White House -- seems to want to deal with taking action against the sources of spreading HIV here in the United States," LaBarbera points out.
Senator Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) says sending 116 federal employees to the conference was a huge waste, costing taxpayers half a million dollars, including a $100,000 registration fee and $80,000 for airfare. Coburn suggests that the money could have instead been used to "prevent 59,136 newborns from becoming infected with HIV" or could have provided treatment to all 35 Americans on a waiting list for AIDS drugs.
