MORE MISCELLANEOUS COMMENTS

The Economist has a squib reporting research that “a large adult head size was beneficial in preventing cognitive decline, in particular memory.” The epidemiological study also suggested that head size at birth was not a predictor of these benefits. Thus the research would suggest that it is head growth in childhood predicts cognitive and memory longevity. Brain size in children triples from birth to age six. Is this another indication that the high rates of malnutrition and stunting among the poor in developing nations will have negative repercussions on intellectual performance for decades?

More distressing news about AIDS, and especially AIDS in Africa. Three-quarters of the 42 million people infected with HIV in the world are in Africa, and in some countries the epidemic is entering the “death phase” where mortality from AIDS is exceeding the rate of new infections. (This would be good if it were due to a radical reduction of the infection rate, but it is bad as an indication of lots of people having entered the terminal phase of the disease.) There are countries in Africa in which 40 percent of the adult population is infected. Only two percent of the infected are receiving anti-viral treatment!

One seemingly optimistic note has to be taken with a grain of salt. It is reported that studies to date show high rates of compliance among those receiving treatment with the complex and demanding schedules for taking the drug. We know that some groups in Africa have had historically high infection rates – truck drivers, soldiers, teachers. (Women now are the majority of infected.) But the people far enough along in the disease to qualify for treatment might be from these groups, and these groups might be more likely to follow regimes well. Moreover, people who beat the 50 to one odds and get into treatment programs might be more socially adept than their untreated fellows, and thus more likely to handle the treatment well.

There is an article in the Travel section of today’s Washington Post pointing out that exception to the 42 year old U.S. travel embargo to Cuba for "educational, people-to-people contact" is to expire December 31 due to sweeping policy changes made by the Bush Administration in March. The Congress has been considering legislation to make such travel legal (which passed in the House of Representatives), but the Administration has signaled it will veto the legislation if it passes. Another indication of the lack of importance given to international cooperation and understanding by this Administration!

The Bush Administration has reinstituted the so-called “Mexico City Policy” which prohibited provision of U.S. family planning program aid to organizations that practiced or promoted abortions. The new AIDS initiative is also handicapped by this policy. It is not simply a restriction against the use of U.S. tax payers’ funds to finance abortions abroad (which makes some sense since a fairly large portion of the U.S. voters find abortions immoral). Rather it is a gag rule that deprives organizations of needed support for many programs, if they provide information on abortion in other programs (not funded by the U.S. Government). I have always felt that this rule was the antithesis of a Knowledge for Development approach – “keep people in the dark in case they might make choices we don’t like”. It exemplifies the “know nothing” aspect of a portion of U.S. culture. Applying the gag rule to HIV/AIDS assistance seems to me to be immoral. It says in effect, “give up providing information about abortion as a form of birth control, or we will let people die of AIDS.” The policy not only militates against the effectiveness of the funding in counteracting AIDS, it is immoral.