Article Examines U.S. Policy Requiring Groups That Receive HIV/AIDS Funding To Condemn Commercial Sex Work
"The U.S. Anti-Prostitution Pledge: First Amendment Challenges and Public Health Priorities," PLoS Medicine: The article, by Nicole Franck Masenior and Chris Beyrer of the Center for Public Health and Human Rights at Johns Hopkins University, provided a summary of scientific evidence on methods to reduce the spread of HIV among commercial sex workers. The article was written for an ongoing case over a U.S. policy requiring recipients of federal HIV/AIDS service grants to pledge to oppose commercial sex work. According to the authors, one of their primary findings is that the blending of the words "prostitution" and "sex trafficking" in the legislation authorizing the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief is "not accepted as standard language or practice by the scientific literature on HIV/AIDS or by international agencies with HIV prevention programs." The article also examined the link between privately funded HIV prevention programs and the First Amendment and judicial decisions made in the case (Franck Masenoir/Beyrer, PLoS Medicine, July 2007).
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