Mark your calendars:

Join us for a presentation by:


Edward C. (Ted) Green
speaking on "Rethinking AIDS Prevention"

Friday, May 14 @ 3:30-5:00 PM

K-069, UW Health Sciences Complex

EDWARD C. GREEN is a medical anthropologist and Senior Research Scientist at
the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, part of Harvard
University's School of Public Health. His most recent and controversial
book, "Rethinking AIDS Prevention: Learning from Successes in Developing
Countries," has expanded and intensified the debate around global AIDS
prevention.

About Dr. Green's book:

This is not another book about how AIDS is out of control in Africa and
Third World nations, or one complaining about the inadequacy of secured
funds to fight the pandemic. The author looks objectively at countries that
have succeeded in reducing HIV infection rates . . . along with a worrisome
flip side to the progress. The largely medical solutions funded by major
donors have had little impact in Africa, the continent hardest hit by AIDS.
Instead, relatively simple, low-cost behavioral change programs--stressing
increased monogamy and delayed sexual activity for young people--have made
the greatest headway in fighting or preventing the disease's spread.
Ugandans pioneered these simple, sustainable interventions and achieved
significant results. As National Review journalist Rod Dreher put it,
"Rather than pay for clinics, gadgets and medical procedures--especially in
the important earlier years of its response to the epidemic--Uganda
mobilized human resources." In a New York Times interview, Green cited
evidence that "partner reduction," promoted as mutual faithfulness, is the
single most effective way of reducing the spread of AIDS.

That deceptively simple solution is not merely about medical advances or
condom use. It is about the ABC model: Abstain, Be faithful, and use Condoms
if A and B are impossible. Yet deeply rooted Western biases have obstructed
the effectiveness of AIDS prevention. Many Western scientists have attacked
the ABC approach as impossible and moralistic. Some Western activists and
HIV carriers have been outraged, thinking the approach passes moral judgment
on their behaviors. But there is also a troubling suspicion among a growing
number of scientists who support the ABC model that certain opponents may
simply be AIDS profiteers, more interested in protecting their incomes than
battling the disease. This book is a bellwether in the escalating
controversy, offering persuasive evidence in support of the ABC approach and
exposing the fallacies and motivations of its opponents.



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