Cambodia Offers ‘Important Lesson’ for President Bush, U.S. School Boards in Fight Against HIV/AIDS, Opinion Piece Says
In the fight against HIV/AIDS, Cambodia "offers an important lesson" for President Bush and U.S. school boards: Do not "fear those lifesaving bits of latex known as condoms," Nicholas Kristof writes in a New York Times opinion piece. Cambodia -- which is "one of the world's few success stories" in HIV prevention -- has "achieved that success partly by vigorously promoting condoms," Kristof writes. According to Kristof, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief -- which is "projected to save some nine million lives around the world" -- is the "single best thing he has done." However, PEPFAR has been "undermined by a resistance to condoms," Kristof writes. According to Kristof, "Abroad, Washington's prudishness about condoms is routinely undermined by pragmatic officials," but similar pragmatism "hasn't reached American schools, particularly in the South." Despite "all the fears that condoms lead to promiscuity, the opposite has been true in Cambodia," Kristof writes, concluding that "we do a better job using our tax dollars to protect the health and lives of Cambodian prostitutes than we do protecting school kids in Texas" (Kristof, New York Times, 12/19).
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