World falls short on pledges to fight HIV and AIDS

A day after a major U.N. report found that the disease continued to spread, albeit slower than before, [U.N. Secretary-General Kofi] Annan told delegates that efforts to fight AIDS among women and children had failed and that young people still had little understanding of AIDS.

The virus "has spread further, faster and with more catastrophic long-term effects than any other disease," Annan said. "Its impact has become a devastating obstacle to the progress of humankind."

Mr Annan should know that the sanctioning of immoral behavior by passing out condoms will never result in a decrease in the spread of AIDS. Yet, as the head of a organization which has outlived its usefulness, being more concerned with power and money that the true rights and dignity of the human person, various UN agencies and departments continue to press forward in repugnant campaigns to enshrine the murder of innocent unborn babies as a "right" while choosing condoms over abstinence as the means to curb deadly STDs. It's amazing how so many allegedly educated people can be so utterly stupid.

HIV/AIDS activists and groups arriving at the United Nations for the three-day event warned that countries appeared reluctant to set new targets to fight the disease and would shy away from making any major promises.

The groups also asserted that the United States and some other socially conservative nations - backed by the Roman Catholic Church - could try to strip from the 2001 promises wording that says effective prevention requires greater availability of condoms, microbicides and vaccines.

This last sentence is, at a minimum, a deception if it is not an outright lie. The Church does not oppose the greater availablity of vaccines and medicines to prevent and treat AIDS or other diseases. The promotion and use of condoms, however, is a different matter. And the promotion of condoms as an effective means of preventing the disease is also deceptive and deadly. There is a way to prevent this disease - a lifestyle based on living chastely which includes abstinence outside of marriage and fidelity within marriage. The sooner this truth is taught, the sooner we will see a change.