Bush Returns To His Old "Hood," Announces Women's Health Initiative

By Adrianna McGinley 

President George W. Bush returned to Washington on Wednesday where he announced a new initiative aimed at preventing and treating cervical and breast cancer in developing nations.

Together with the Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Joint United Nations Prgramme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the George W. Bush Institute announced the “Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon” initiative, which will introduce accessible women’s health care in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. The program begins with initial commitments of at least $75 million over five years and comes on the heels of PEPFAR’s success in combating HIV/AIDS in developing nations.

“There’s been a lot of progress made,” Bush said in reference to HIV prevention and treatment, “but there’s still a lot of problems that remain, and one such problem is cervical cancer. Turns out many women who seek AIDS services face the challenge of cervical cancer. It’s not enough to save a woman from AIDS and have her die from cervical cancer, it’s just unacceptable.”

President Bush also addressed those who claim the U.S. is not responsible for disease prevention in other nations.

“We got our own problems here at home, they say. This is isolationism which is dangerous, it’s dangerous because one of the lessons of September the 11th is what happens overseas matters here at home. When there’s hopelessness it affects the security of the United States of America…and there’s nothing more hopeless to a child who loses a mom or dad to AIDS to watch the wealthy nations of the world sit back and do nothing.”

Also speaking at the event were Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Susan G. Komen for the Cure CEO and Founder Nancy Brinker, who also serves as U.N. Goodwill Ambassador for Cancer Control.

“My sister Suzy made me promise I would do everything I could to help women not die of breast cancer, but that promise wasn’t limited to our borders, it was for all women, because where you live shouldn’t determine whether you live,” Brinker said. “We can’t afford to wait, the urgency of this crisis grows by the hour…More than 60 percent of all deaths by cancer occur in low and middle income countries, yet only 5 percent of the global resources are spent in the developing world.”

African leaders and doctors involved with the program were also present at the event and reiterated the urgency and need for this kind of assistance. 

Using culture as groundwork for development

Today, the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) released The State of World Population 2008. The UNFPA held a discussion on how to use culturally sensitive approaches that are essential to understanding legal, political, economic and social power relations instrumental to development.

According to a UNFPA press release, the report suggests that partnerships—for example between UNFPA and local non-governmental organizations (NGOs)—can create effective strategies to promote human rights, such as women’s empowerment and gender equality, and end human rights abuses like female genital mutilation or cutting. The press release said power relations mold gender dynamics and underlie practices such as child marriage (a leading cause of obstetric fistula and maternal death) and female genital mutilation or cutting.

Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) said “UNFPA will be funded. The president doesn’t have to do anything. He just has to let the will of congress go through.” Maloney was a very strong supporter of this new report that believes by “embracing cultural realities, you can reveal the most effective ways to challenge harmful cultural practices and strengthen beneficial ones.”

Azza Karam, Ph.D., Senior Culture Adviser at UNFPA, brought up an example of this cultural development integration in Ethiopia. International aid organizations spend thousands to millions of dollars on medical clinics in Ethiopia, especially for safeguarding childbirth methods. Yet many NGOs find that the clinics are rarely used. By using what UNFPA calls a “cultural lens,” an NGO would find that many women are choosing to perform home births instead because “they believe it’s a part of their culture.” If the NGO uses UNFPA’s cultural lens method, they could work with a religious leader who performs the teen-marriages that lead to young pregnancy to prevent the marriages from happening in the first place. This is a way of what Pauline Muchina, Ph.D., Senior Partnership Adviser at UNAIDS, called using culture as the fundamental groundwork for development.

Economic crisis poses a threat to AIDS treatment worldwide

The recent economic crisis may pose a threat to HIV/AIDS patients worldwide. With the financial future of so many countries in question, it appears that the funding that has provided retro viral therapy for over 300 million people may be cut. Peter Piot, executive director of UNAIDS, gave a strong warning about cutting funding.

"Interrupting that...or slowing down would not only be a disaster for millions of people but also, it would undermine the huge investments that have been made over the last few years, just when the return of the investment is starting to come now."

Speaking at a Center for Strategic and International Studies discussion on "the past and present challenges for Global Health and AIDS", Piot said that the U.S.'s effort in combating AIDS internationally has saved millions of lives.

"It was really heartening to hear President Bush and Secretary Rice...at the summit on development, to make a plea for continuing American leadership here, and I hope the next President will follow on the same lines."

Piot stated that the world's funding must continue to be a priority to guarantee that 3 million people on retro viral therapy can remain in treatment, those who do not have treatment find it, and that AIDS prevention continues to be pursued.

Piot discussed the necessary steps to continue fighting AIDS, including confronting HIV/AIDS with a multilateral approach; using an approach that blends science with human rights, and adopting an attitude of immediate action.

"If we would have waited until Health systems and Health services [were] functioning very well before starting with retro viral therapy, which was the conventional wisdom of every single donor, I know what would have happened with the 3 or 4 million people on retroviral therapy today. They would be dead," said Piot.