Reply #19: His real crime: advocating against condom use. This is a crime against humanity.

[Tom Joad]

It is encouraging the spreading of AIDS and in places like the Phillipines, this could mean a total catastorphe.

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/04/30/philip8520.htm
From Human Rights Watch:

The Philippines is courting an HIV/AIDS explosion by pandering to religious objections to condom use, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today.

The Philippine government’s inadequate HIV-prevention policies put at grave risk large numbers of men, women and children who could contract this incurable disease. Condoms are the only widely available device for preventing sexual transmission of HIV and have proven highly effective when used correctly and consistently.

“The Philippines is courting an AIDS epidemic with its anti-condom approach,” said Jonathan Cohen, a researcher with Human Rights Watch’s HIV/AIDS Program and author of the report. “The casualties will be millions of people who cannot protect themselves from HIV infection.”
(snip)

The United States announced in 2002 that it would no longer donate condoms to the Philippines, causing an unprecedented condom supply crisis. The announcement coincided with the scaling up of U.S.-funded “abstinence until marriage” programs, now a staple of U.S. foreign AIDS policy. Since President George W. Bush took office in 2000, his administration has removed information about condoms from government websites, appointed physicians who oppose condoms as high-level advisers on HIV/AIDS, and opposed references to condoms in United Nations policy documents. The United States opposed a reference to “consistent condom use” at the 2002 Asian and Pacific Population Conference.
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