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Over the weekend, Rod 2.0 updated the growing international backlash against Uganda’s latest and most extreme, anti-gay proposal: The proposed offense of “aggravated homosexuality” where an HIV-positive gay men has sex with another man. The penalty would be death. The prime ministers of Britain and Canada have formally protested the proposal.

Last year, the small East African nation received some $287 million in funding from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Several members of Congress, including Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), want the Obama Administration to withhold funding for AIDS programs in Uganda unless legislators abandon the extreme legislation. Sorry but we don’t tell countries how to legislate, PEPFAR Chief Coordinator Eric Goosby tells Newsweek.

From rodonline.typepad.com/rodonline

Article from http://rodonline.typepad.com/rodonline

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The position of the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, is more complicated, and his silence more eloquent. He is himself Ugandan by birth. One of his younger half-brothers, pastor Robert Kayanja, is a highly successful pentecostal preacher in Kampala, running a church called the Rubaga Miracle Centre. Such people are highly rewarded, and the business is extremely competitive. A rival preacher, the gloriously named Solomon Male of the The Arising Church was accused this spring of kidnapping Kayanga’s assistant and torturing him for five days to get him to confess that his boss was gay and partial to young men.

The admission would have been social death. Come to think of it, under the new law, it would be physical death as well.

Sentamu’s office say that he has not spoken to his brother for some months and was unaware of the story. So the suggestion on some websites that this was the cause of his silence can’t be right. On the other hand, his office is quite clear that he has “no plans” to speak out on the proposed bill.

To read more, please click here.

www.guardian.co.uk

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Mogae’s message

“Your Excellency, we respectfully express our concern at the provisions referenced in these two Bills and fear that passage of such legislation, which deviates from international best practice and recommendations, could lead to increased stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV/Aids and the groups most vulnerable to the epidemic,” Mr Mogae wrote.

In the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill, Mr Mogae’s organisation is particularly concerned about a proposal that would see a person convicted of the offence of homosexuality imprisoned for life and a death penalty imposed for those having gay sex with anyone under the age of 18, or when the accused is HIV-positive.
Ndorwa West MP David Bahati who introduced the Bill, has defended it saying the proposed law is intended to protect future generations. “Homosexuality is not a human right. It is a foreign behaviour imported and promoted by people using the poverty in our country to expound bad behaviour. We are determined to protect what is right for Uganda and not what is convenient for some people,” Mr Bahati said.

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By Evelyn Lirri from www.monitor.co.ug

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Janet Jackson spoke before an audience filled with celebs at amfAR Milano, an inaugural event to support AIDS research.

AmfAR’s chief executive Kevin Robert Frost expressed gratitude for having Janet on board to chair the event. He said, “She brings incomparable grace and a history of dedication to the fight against AIDS.”

To read more about it, click here. (etonline.com)

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For the first time ever, an AIDS vaccine has protected subjects of a clinical trial from infection. Now directors of a new Seattle-based study are hoping for a repeat performance — or maybe even a cure.

“I’m more than ever convinced it’s possible,” said Dr. James Kublin, director of the HIV Vaccine Trials Network, an international research group headquartered in Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

Like his colleagues worldwide, Kublin saw the results of the clinical trial reported worldwide Thursday as a welcome sign of progress in an all too often disappointing field.

In the study, which was conducted in Thailand with the backing of the United States Army, among other large partners, more than 16,000 volunteers were given doses of two vaccines and half were given placebos. Of those who later became infected with HIV, 74 had gotten placebos, while 51 had gotten vaccines — a statistically significant difference.

Now, the pressure’s on for a similar Seattle-based trial that will test a different vaccine pair on 1,350 volunteers in 14 sites across the country, including Seattle, and — like the Thai study — track both the rate of infection and the “viral load” in the body.

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by thestar.com

BANGKOK–Scientists said they were thrilled – but nonetheless baffled – that a developmental AIDS vaccine has shown significant success.

Test results released here yesterday showed the vaccine – a combination of two vaccines that have not worked in humans before – cut the risk of becoming infected with HIV by more than 31 per cent.

It was the world’s largest AIDS vaccine trial of more than 16,000 volunteers in Thailand.

“I don’t want to use a word like `breakthrough,’ but I don’t think there’s any doubt that this is a very important result,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is one of the trial’s backers.

To read more, please click here.

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