The Wall Street Journal - May 7, 2003
Mark Ingebretsen

One reason for the huge victory was an amendment added by House conservatives aimed at bringing their caucus aboard. In effect, the amendment will set aside "a sizable portion of the bill's money for abstinence education," the Baltimore Sun reported.

An editorial Tuesday in the Detroit Free Press noted the abstinence amendment, as well as another provision regarding condom distribution, had "more to do with domestic morality debates" than with the fight against AIDS. The editorial further urged the Senate, which is expected to debate Mr. Bush's AIDS package this week, to remove the limiting provisions.

"Such restrictions ... ignore reality -- that some people, no matter how well educated in abstinence, will have sex outside marriage; that in some parts of that male-dominated world, women can't 'just say no,'" the editorial wrote.

Yet the millions conservatives seek to spend on abstinence may be better spent elsewhere: A number of experts now believe that the main cause of Africa's AIDS epidemic has less to do with sexual activity than the widespread use of contaminated needles.

"Not only are injections popular among African patients, administered at an estimated 90% of medical visits, but also often unnecessary and injection equipment is often used," according to German and U.S. researchers who were quoted by the BBC.

The German-U.S. study appeared in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and concluded: "The common belief that HIV transmission in Africa is driven by heterosexual exposure is no longer tenable."

Though, not everyone agrees with this theory. The World Health Organization, for instance, "estimates that unsafe injections are responsible for 5 per cent of HIV infections," according to Britain's Times Online.

But earlier this year a series of articles in the International Journal of STD and AIDS supported the more recent study with claims like "'health care exposures caused more HIV [in Africa] than sexual transmission,' with contaminated medical injections being the biggest risk," the journal wrote.

Among the evidence cited in the articles was the large number of children who are infected but whose mothers are not and that the most sexually permissive parts of Africa have relatively low and stable HIV rates while "Countries like Zimbabwe, with the best access to medical care, have the highest rates of HIV transmission."

David Gisselquist, an economic anthropologist who helped assemble the research for both studies mentioned here said "a 'comprehensive safe injection' program could be in place world-wide for between $300 million and $900 million a year," the Washington Times reported.

Indeed, such funds could be diverted from the aforementioned abstinence programs, since as Mr. Gisselquist noted in the Washington Times, "We need to ground our prevention programs in fact."

Mind Over Matter

New studies show meditation may actually quell stress and even fight disease, benefits long-championed by advocates.

In one study, researchers enrolled volunteers in a daily meditation class, and at the end of the experiment, the group displayed more activity in the left frontal lobe, or the area of the brains associated with calmness. They also exhibited a better immune response to flu shots they received, The Los Angeles Times wrote.

Interestingly, the Dalai Lama, the exiled leader of Tibetan Buddhism, is reportedly interested in meditation research, the Times noted. "One of his goals ... is to see whether scientists can explain objectively the subtleties of the mind that Buddhists have long understood subjectively."

Wisconsin's Secret

Why are malpractice insurance rate increases in Wisconsin among the lowest in the nation? According to the American Medical News, the reason lies within a series of state laws designed to hold premiums in check.

For example, Wisconsin presently caps its malpractice awards at $410,000, with future increases pegged to inflation. Physicians are liable only for the damages they incur, and the state also limits the fees lawyers may receive and the time period in which plaintiffs may sue, the article wrote.

INDUSTRY VITALS

* Biotech firms are lobbying Congress "to exempt human patents from some federal exclusivity laws as part of an upcoming modernization plan at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office," Reuters reported.

* Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation's leading HMOs seeks "regulatory approval to offer a plan, as soon as this fall, that would allow patients to visit the doctors and hospitals of their choice," the Washington Post wrote.
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