hillary rocks

Sen. Clinton Chides Bush on Women's Health Policy

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said the Bush administration was making it hard for the poor to receive the full range of reproductive health services by putting too much emphasis on abstinence to combat AIDS.

Speaking at a dinner to hundreds of women's rights and health activists on Tuesday night, the New York Democrat urged advocacy groups not to give up "despite the less-than-friendly atmosphere we currently face in Washington with the current administration."

you go girl!

an interesting (and scary) article about women and AIDS can be found here.

excerpt:

In the United States, new AIDS cases among women rose at seven times the rate for men from 1997 to 2002. Women now account for 26 percent of AIDS diagnoses. According to the current Newsweek magazine, that's nearly four times the proportion they made up in 1986. Girls account for the majority of new HIV infections among teens.

(snip)

Most Americans picture an AIDS patient as white, affluent, male and homosexual. The face of AIDS in America today is black, poor, female and heterosexual.

The disease is decimating Asia and Africa, and that could happen here unless the trend is reversed. Using condoms during sex greatly reduces the risk of disease. But it is difficult to persuade a drug-addicted, abused woman or a teenager eager to please a boyfriend to insist on it.

Treatment helps contain HIV-AIDS but more research is needed. As long as people with AIDS are on the fringes of society, don't expect major demand for funding. Perhaps when the disease strikes the middle class in bigger numbers, that attitude will change.