Good And Bad News This Holiday Season

By Dr. W. Gifford Jones

December 18, 2005

"It was the best of times and the worst of times" penned Charles Dickens in a Tale of Two Cities. Nothing has changed on planet Earth this holiday season. This week brings a good news story and one I'd prefer not to write.

I'd never heard of "Hope Air", until I met one of its directors at a recent wedding. He told me that since 1986, Hope Air, a non-profit organization, has arranged 45,000 free flights to medical centers for patients who need treatment and can't afford the fare.

To accomplish this Hope Air has 200 volunteer pilots who donate their time and aircraft to serve communities not served by commercial airlines. Almost half of the flights are for children and their escorts. They also provide 24 hour service for Ontario's organ retrieval program.

Jonathan Buckle was born five weeks premature at the Labrador Health center in Happy-Valley Goose Bay and became seriously ill. He was rushed to the Janeway Children's Health and Rehabilitation center in St. John's. Here specialists diagnosed a heart problem that required frequent visits to St John's. But his parents could not afford the trips. Hope Air stepped in to make it possible.

A woman in northern Manitoba noticed two blind spots in her vision and failing eyesight. When she consulted her doctor, he was unable to diagnose the problem and referred her to an eye specialist in Winnipeg. But the patient was without funds. Hope Air arranged the flight and saved this patient from a progressive condition that could have ended in blindness.

Hope Air is not an ambulance service and available in every province. But patients must be able to board the plane with a minimum of aid.

I don't know why Hope Air escaped my attention for so many years. But along with its many sponsors it deserves honourable mention this holiday season. For details call either its toll-free number 1-877-346-hope, or by e-mail, mail@hopeair.org

Now the bad news. This holiday season untold numbers of people face death in Africa from the AIDS epidemic. Now the U.S. government, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to increase the misery of this catastrophic problem.

Uganda became one of the first nations to wage war on Aids. In 1991, 15 percent of Uganda's adults were infected with the virus. Ten years later this figure has dropped to 5 percent.

This was accomplished by bringing the Aids problem into the open. In effect, the government encouraged people to look after their own health, not an easy task. Consider the number of so-called intelligent people who still smoke.

President Yoweri Museveni headed the fight which be labelled "a patriotic duty". His government, promoted abstinence, faithfulness and free condoms as a three-pronged attack on AIDS.

But Big Brother Bush has changed the rules of the game. Now by withdrawing funding, it leaves abstinence as the only way to fight this infection. The policy has had a major effect on Ugandan officials.

For instance, President Museveni, at the last international AIDS conference, gave a blistering attack on the use of condoms. What an about face! And his wife now condemns condom use as immoral. She has called for a national census of virgins!

Billboards promoting condom use have come down for lack of U.S. funding. Free condoms formerly available at government clinics have virtually disappeared. While 30 million condoms sit in warehouses!

Washington's funds now go to promoting abstinence. This is as ridiculous as telling Ugandan's not to eat. Studies show that the highest risk group in Uganda is young married women who become infected by straying husbands. And how does this woman say "NO" to her husband?

Sexual abstinence in treating an infectious disease has not worked in North America and it won't work in Uganda. So years of progress in fighting AIDS goes down the drain.

I have great admiration for the U.S. It is the first to rush aid to stricken areas of the world. But it's current government should be taken to the outhouse and given a severe whipping. Morals and religion are impractical and inhumane in the fight against AIDS.

I wish all of you a happy and healthy holiday season and a wiser New Year.

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W. Gifford-Jones M.D is the pen name of Dr. Ken Walker graduate of Harvard. Dr. Walker's website is: Docgiff.com

My book, �90 + How I Got There� can be obtained by sending $19.95 to:

Giff Holdings, 525 Balliol St, Unit # 6,Toronto, Ontario, M4S 1E1

Pre-2008 articles by Gifford Jones

Canada Free Press, CFP Editor Judi McLeod