Since I have posted several articles about Bush's shortcomings, I feel it's only fair to mention when he did something I think is right. I don't think his AIDS plan was perfect, because of deficiencies in the prevention area, but at least he wanted to do good, and did so.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=aikvQ2bbZA1Q&refer=home
President’s Emergency AIDS Plan Saved 1.2 Million in Africa
By Marilyn Chase
April 6 (Bloomberg) -- The largest U.S. foreign aid program fighting the AIDS epidemic has cut the disease’s death toll by 1.2 million from 2004 to 2007 in a dozen hard-hit African countries, researchers said.
The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, started by President George W. Bush in 2003, lowered the AIDS death rate on average by 10.5 percent a year in those countries, said study author Eran Bendavid of Stanford University in a study published online today in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The program’s benefits didn’t extend to preventing new infections or lowering overall prevalence of the AIDS virus.
The largest single U.S. foreign aid program for health in history, the PEPFAR program has invested most of its $18.8 billion to date in treatment for people already infected by the AIDS virus. The relief plan devoted a smaller share to prevention programs that often focused on sexual abstinence.
“Treatment has worked,” said Bendavid, a fellow in infectious diseases and health policy, in an interview. The challenge now is to make prevention “a serious component of the program in the next five years,” he added.
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