Bob Geldolf Hails U.S. Abstinence Initiative to Combat AIDS

Today at the Labor Party conference in Manchester, guest speaker and Live Aid founder and anti-poverty campaigner Bob Geldolf praised as "highly effective" U.S. President George W. Bush's five-year, $15 billion Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Geldolf said PEPFAR, which began in 2003, has given women "a weapon" for protecting their health. PEPFAR critics say it unduly funds faith-based groups that stress abstinence and privileges abstinence programs -- which receive one-third of prevention funding -- over condom use against HIV. Geldolf noted AIDS rates were stabilizing in Africa, in part because of condom use. "PEPFAR, which is Bush's almost personal response to the Global Fund, is a highly effective AIDS combatant mechanism," he said. "It works. It's uncomfortable for people to speak these unspoken truths, but a lot of that stuff is working."

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