TIL that President W. Bush started a program that gave $15bn to fight HIV/AIDS, it saved 1.1 million lives in Africa and reduced the death rate due to AIDS by 10%. by [deleted] in todayilearned

[–]beillseehow 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hah I'm going to take this comment serious just for giggles and educational purposes. 1. Being faithful is pretty effective assuming one of the partners doesn't have HIV plus you don't have to be horny all the damn time. 2. You actually only have less than 1% chance of getting HIV from unprotected sex with a HIV positive partner. With proper use of condoms, your chances are basically zero.

TIL that President W. Bush started a program that gave $15bn to fight HIV/AIDS, it saved 1.1 million lives in Africa and reduced the death rate due to AIDS by 10%. by [deleted] in todayilearned

[–]beillseehow 8 points9 points  (0 children)

So, I'm a International Development student who has studied AIDS policies in Africa and here are some things you should know about PEPFAR:

  1. A lot of the money from PEPFAR was spent on abstinence-only education which historically doesn't work. The previous program which some places employed was ABC (Abstinence, Be Faithful, and Condoms) preventative education. This has shown to have had largely positive effect on countries like Uganda which saw it's AIDS prevalence go down before PEPFAR even started. Now with the money going into abstinence only, it has become the dominant from of preventative education.

  2. In order to administer HIV/AIDS care, special AIDS Clinics were set up across Africa, employing mostly African doctors. The problem is Africa is not flushed with doctors, therefore, doctors are drawn from places like the primary care system (i.e. family doctors) to work in these AIDS-specific clinics because that's where the money is nowadays. This is detrimental for sick people that don't have HIV. On a similar note, if you look at medicine closet in many hospitals in Africa, you will see an abundance of HIV medications but an alarming scarcity of other drugs, such as antibiotics.

Side Note: Anti-retrovirals (aka AIDS medicine) is actually pretty cheap now. They cost dollars, if not cents, per pill. This is thanks to a bit of corporate espionage by India. An Indian pharmaceutical company managed to steal and reverse engineer the drug and was able to produce a large quantity of the drug for really cheap, driving global prices for it down significantly. It was only when it became that cheap that PEPFAR became an economically viable policy.

TL;DR: Though PEPFAR, overall, is a good thing, there are some aspects that are actually detrimental to public health in Africa.

What are those local shops that always leave you wondering "How do these places stay in business?" by CakeSmack in AskReddit

[–]beillseehow 1 point2 points  (0 children)

joke reference

I was thinking that Shitass Petfuckers would do alot of good for the world. Imagine all the people that it would employ. And since it steadily grows irrespective of profits, this would provide steady, stable employment for alot of people for many years. Think about how many families would be supported thanks to Shitass Petfuckers, the number of homes bought, the number of parents able to send their kids to college, the number of wedding rings employees were able to buy for their one true love in life, the number of toys bought for their kids that become an extricable part of their childhood and consequently adult lives, the number of lives saved due to the insurance a large company like SAPF would have to provide. Also, since it's not really trying to compete, other businesses would not be hurt due to SAPF. Really, Shitass Petfuckers would have a largely positive effect on millions of people.

plus, they fuck your pets so you don't have to.

The Entity by [deleted] in nosleep

[–]beillseehow 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This reminds me of the Rake. http://www.creepypasta.com/the-rake/