Obama, Clinton, and Bush wrong on Uganda [video]
So the traditional wisdom, even on the Democratic side, is that the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is good. Last weekend, both the Democratic contenders weighed in on it and essentially endorsed the plan:
Clinton:
I commend President Bush for his PEPFAR initiative. It was a very bold and important commitment.
Obama:
And, by the way, this is an area where — this doesn’t happen very often, so everybody should take note — where I compliment George Bush. I actually think that the PEPFAR program is one of the success stories of this administration.
The left is reluctant to critique PEPFAR, even though it mandates that one-third of prevention spending be directed towards abstinence-only programs, because of the success story of Uganda. The history is, Uganda implemented this kind of educational program, beloved by religious leaders, and the incidents of HIV/AIDS went down from 15% to 7% (or, to use the phraseology endorsed by religious leaders, “from 30 percent to 6 percent“). Anyway, there was an improvement, and that’s good, and it means abstinence education works! Hurray Bush!
Thing is, the picture is not so simple. If you have the time, check out the below eighteen-minute speech by University of Chicago economist, Emily Oster. It’s a bit long, but she’s brilliant. To ruin the punchline, she argues that the success story of Uganda could be caused by something other than abstinence education programs: the price of coffee beans. Yes, really. The price of beans. It may sound crazy, but she’s convincing and not just because she’s hot.
Worse, there’s this worrisome conclusion that our stated economic policies for Africa may inadvertently spread the virus. Oops! On the bright-side, Bush’s record as worst president is going to be tough to beat.
2 Responses to “Obama, Clinton, and Bush wrong on Uganda [video]”
http://www.luros.org
Socieconomics strikes again! First it was that the embargo and associated high energy prices in Cuba resulted in decreased obesity, heart disease, and adult-onset diabetes. What’s next, the low cost of the wii will result in a renewed participation in group fitness? Everybody knows that there is one thing that caused AIDS rates to go down in Uganda, and that’s the War On Terror (WOT). Or was it Reaganomics?
http://www.matthewfunk.net/blog
I would weigh in with the Democrats that PEPFAR has been successful in alleviating some of the suffering of the AIDS-ridden in the African continent. However, it is successful for a reason that conservatives usually deride liberals for relying on - simply throwing money at a problem does, indeed, work.
It does not solve problems though, and Uganda is a case of how other factors play even more critical roles. Given that, it behooves us to enumerate the ways in which PEPFAR could do more (read: fails to hit the mark):
1. It does little to aggressively negotiate the price of the medical supplies it provides, instead being a taxpayer-fueled sop to the American pharm companies.
2. It does not nearly do enough for education of AIDS prevention, neglecting discussion of crucial vectors in the spread of HIV, such as drug use.
3. Abstinence only education is utterly preposterous, when the leading vehicle of transmission of AIDS in Africa is unprotected sex, often between couples in stable - if not monogamous - relationships.
In sum, though PEPFAR deserves due credit for alleviating the symptoms of the AIDS epidemic in Africa, it does little to address the core problems. It pours American taxpayer money down the swollen throats of the drug companies, leaves Africans ignorant and allows the disease to spread wild by expecting abstinence of couples who have no rational reason to expect it of themselves.
In many ways, PEPFAR has similar flaws to the Iraq and Afghanistan policies, in that a particularly cynical observer could view it as having all the elements of a money making scheme for corporations: It allows the core problems of an exploited country to worsen, while pumping American money into the corporations that gain from exploiting those problems.
Discussion