The Uganda Project

Back in the '80s, Uganda had one of the highest AIDS rates in the world for its population at 30%. Ugandan President Museveni couldn't afford to buy condoms from Western countries so he launched the ABC campaign: Abstinence until marriage; Be faithful in marriage; Condoms only for high-risk groups. It was a nationwide project with messages on billboards and various other ads about the dangers of sex outside of marriage. Over the next ten years, the AIDS rate in the country dropped down to 6%, still more than the US AIDS rate, but the drop was incredible. AIDS researchers were amazed and studied how it happened. One researcher, an epidemiologist named Dr. Stoneburner, was denied several times over a ten year period by U. S. Agency for International Development (USAID) from publishing his findings. Dr. Stoneburner found that condoms do not prevent the spread of AIDS. USAID and their financial partners kept him quiet. Years later, another researcher, a Harvard anthropologist named Dr. Green, found that the first two points of the campaign, abstinence and marital fidelity, played a greater role in AIDS decline than condom usage. When he and his co-researcher presented their findings to USAID and friends, USAID was embarassed and horrified. They didn't want to believe the findings because they wouldn't have a profitable market. In the mid-90's, Dr. Green advocated condom usage to control Third World population and poverty. He is no conservative, but because he prides himself as an objective researcher, he had to follow the evidence concerning AIDS even if he didn't like it. USAID didn't publish Dr. Green's findings because it wouldn't have made money for their friend Population Services International, a condom distribution company. Instead they demoted Dr. Green, hired someone else, and began to tout that condom usage leads to AIDS decline. Like in most things, follow the money and it'll uncover the truth.