Washington Blade - August 22, 2003

WASHINGTON (AP) - For the third time in a year, the federal government is examining the books of a group that promotes the use of condoms to fight AIDS and whose leaders have criticized the Bush administration's support for "abstinence-only" sex education. Auditors from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention planned a weeklong review at the Washington headquarters of Advocates for Youth. The CDC and the congressional General Accounting Office have previously conducted audits, said Debra Hauser, the group's vice president. "What we're concerned about is that it appears that the selective and political use of the audits is to intimidate those organizations that are standing up for comprehensive sex education and are opposed to abstinence-until-marriage programs," Hauser said. Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, said the development marks the continuation a disturbing trend in which similar scrutiny is not applied to "abstinence-only" programs discouraging all sex before marriage and forbidding discussion of the benefits of birth control or condom use. "Whether a group believes that abstinence is the only acceptable means of achieving AIDS prevention seems to be the determining factor in these auditing decisions," Waxman said last week in a letter to Health & Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson. Kathy Harben, a CDC spokesperson, said the agency was responding to a request by Rep. Joseph Pitts, a Pennsylvania Republican, to check whether the groups were using federal money to lobby, which is prohibited. Administration officials have previously denied any political motivations to the audits.

AIDS activists in Georgia oppose reporting names

ATLANTA (AP) - AIDS and gay rights activists are fighting the state of Georgia's effort to collect the names of people who test positive for HIV in doctor's offices, saying the new proposal would threaten confidentiality and deter testing. Georgia is the last state that does not collect HIV case data with personal identifiers, such as a patient's name or an ID code. State officials unsuccessfully have tried several times over the years to win activist support for such a system. "This is not like cancer or diabetes. There's a stigma attached" to HIV, said Greg Smith, project manager for AIDS Survival in Atlanta. The Georgia Division of Public Health said HIV data are useless without a name or code because the federal government requires more details when determining how much AIDS funds should go to states. State health officials said HIV test results will remain confidential under the proposal. But activists said people will avoid HIV testing and treatment if they know a positive test result means their names will be reported to the government. "A significant portion of our community would stay away out of fear," said Kevin Clark, Chatham County director of Georgia Equality, a statewide gay rights group.

University of Alabama wins $16 million for HIV project

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) - The University of Alabama at Birmingham has been awarded a $16 million grant to develop vaccines for HIV. The grant awarded by the National Institutes of Allergy & Infection Diseases names UAB to lead the 4 1/2-year study, the university announced in a news release. Research will also be conducted at Harvard and Emory universities and at Novavax Inc., the university said. Dr. Jiri Mestecky, professor of microbiology and medicine at UAB will lead the study. The team will develop and test the vaccine in animals, then conduct a small-sale study of the vaccine in humans, according to the news release.

Accused killer must have HIV test

LEBANON, Tenn. (AP) - A Maryville woman accused of killing two police officers by crashing a stolen Mercedes-Benz into them during a high-speed chase must undergo HIV/AIDS testing. After Fallon Tallent, 21, was arrested last month in the deaths and taken to the Wilson County Jail, she got into an altercation with a jailer who was splattered with her blood. Wilson County Criminal Court Judge John Wootten Jr. agreed last week during a court hearing to have her tested for the virus that causes AIDS. Wootten refused to lower a $4 million bond for Tallent, who has a history of fleeing police and a felony evading arrest charge pending in Knoxville. Tallent is charged with first-degree murder and felony murder in the officers' deaths.

Brazil to distribute millions of condoms to high schoolers

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) - Brazil will distribute 3.4 million condoms to high school students in five cities as part of a program to combat teenage pregnancies and AIDS, the health ministry said last week. The program aims to provide some 105,000 students who are sexually active with up to eight condoms a month through July 2004. A second phase of the program hopes to reach 2.6 million students by 2006. "One of the reasons which has convinced the health ministry to guarantee access to condoms for the school population is the high number adolescent pregnancies ... and the increase in the number of AIDS cases among young people in the 13-19 age range," the ministry said in a statement.

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