Terrorism

PINOY KASI

Terrorism
By Michael Tan

Inquirer

Last updated 02:25am (Mla time) 08/18/2006
Published on Page A13 of the August 18, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

IT WAS five in the morning, Wednesday, in Toronto and I woke up reminding myself it was Wednesday night at home and I had to finish my Inquirer column before going off to work at the AIDS conference. I stumbled to the door to get the newspaper, relieved to see that the headline wasn't, for once, about more bombings in Lebanon or suicide bombers in Iraq. Instead, the headline read, "Clinton demands action" -- about which I'll tell youmore.
After reading the Canadian newspaper, I went into the Internet for the Inquirer. The headline was about impeachment hearings, but I skipped the article; we don't need the fortuneteller Madam Auring to tell us what the future will be for those hearings.
One breaking news item caught my eye: "SC stops gov't ban on breast milk substitute advertisements." As I read through, my heart sank. I knew I had to write about another kind of terrorism, different from and yet similar to those bombs in the Middle East.
Good science
I'll get back to that Supreme Court decision, but first let me pick up on the AIDS conference. Monday's sessions were more ceremonial, with a lot of nice things said about hope and solidarity and moving forward.
The Toronto newspaper headlines captured Tuesday's sessions at the AIDS conference, as speakers moved from rhetoric to the harsh realities of the battle against HIV/AIDS. Bill Clinton, in one of the public discussions, had talked about how the world now has the tools, the money and the power to prevent HIV infections, and yet is unable to do so because science has been fighting a losing battle with ideology.
Let me be more specific: On Tuesday, the World Health Organization released a thick report, "Preventing HIV/AIDS in Young People," summarizing a massive review of the evidence from 80 studies conducted in developing countries to evaluate the impact of different programs. The studies show that the following work: Curriculum-based sexuality education in schools, community services for adolescents, explicit but culturallysensitive messages in the mass media, and special outreach facilities for young people most at risk, for example, young sex workers.
Yet the US government has opposed many of these programs, for example, denying funds to projects that give health education, and services to sex workers have been labeled as being pro-prostitution.
Filipino conservatives, linked to US and other international right-wing groups, have also opposed sexuality education in schools. Much of their ire targets the use of condoms, which they say don't work because they have holes through which HIV passes. This is bad or junk science, considering that the scientific evidence has debunked these myths -- OK, let me be more direct: these lies.
What has the US government pushed for HIV prevention? Abstinence-only programs, which at least have parents and teachers talking with young people. In the Philippines, all we can offer young people is mumbo-jumbo incantations: "Just don't do it, and let's not even talk about it because you might start doing it."
War on drugs
Another example that came up on Tuesday was the programs for injecting drug users (IDUs), drug dependents who inject the narcotics. They are at great risk of being infected by HIV, and passing it on because of contaminated syringes and needles.
Speakers at the Toronto conference cited study after study showing the effectiveness of what are called harm-reduction approaches. This includes giving clean syringes and needles to injecting drug users, as well as drug rehab with substitution therapy (for example, methadone), and of course intensive counseling and support.
Again, the US government was singled out as being the last developed country that opposes harm reduction, because the conservatives see the syringe and needle programs as promoting drug addiction. The US government's alternative has been its "war on drugs" approach, specifically, increasing penalties for drug use, whether injecting or not,and throwing users into jail, with little rehab.
The evidence is clear that this "war" approach fails miserably, with America's drug problem growing by the day. Yet whatever America does, we imitate. By the Philippine government's own admission, we now have millions of drug dependents that are unable to help themselves to overcome their addiction.
Fortunately, injecting-drug use is not too popular in the Philippines, but we need to worry too about "shabu" ["crack"]. The AIDS conference had several speakers warning about how the use of methamphetamines contributes as well to HIV risk. This happens because users of these drugs tend to have more unprotected sex with multiple partners.
Saying no
What does all this have to do with the Supreme Court decision? The Department of Health (DOH) issued new rules in May that would strictly regulate the advertising of breast milk substitutes (better known as infant formula or milk powder). The Mercury Drug store chain and several formula manufacturers -- Abbott Laboratories, Wyeth Philippines, Mead Johnson, Astra-Zeneca Pharmaceuticals, Bayer Philippines, Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline -- sued the DOH and asked the Supreme Court to block the new rules. The Court first upheld the DOH, but it has now reversed itself.
I haven't seen the Supreme Court order yet, but the Inquirer article quotes the companies' lawyer, Felicitas Aquino-Arroyo: "The DOH order unduly expanded the authority granted it under the Milk Code by prohibiting the free flow of information regarding the nutritional content of infant formula vis-à-vis breast milk and the other traditional milksubstitutes, which will only result in preventing much needed knowledge on proper infant feeding."
The parallels are all too similar between HIV prevention and child health. We have the facts, the evidence from science on what's needed for good health, but we allow ideologues to overrule science.
In the case of the infant-formula controversy, we are dealing with drug companies which use "free enterprise" to protect their narrow interests. We allow drug companies to make spurious claims about the benefits of infant formula, all in the name of "free flow of information."
Some of these companies are also producers of antiretrovirals needed to prolong the lives of people with HIV. The multinationals dictate high prices for their medicines and have tried to block generic manufacturers from producing cheaper versions, all in the name of "free enterprise." Not surprisingly, only 10 percent of the 38 million people living with HIV today have access to the antiretrovirals. With our passive acceptance of religious fanatics and "free enterprise" fundamentalists, we're actually welcoming latter-day terrorists into our midst, inviting them to blow themselves up, taking us and future generations with them.