Democratic Death Match

Ok, so maybe people don’t want to have a conversation or discussion about current public health intiatives. I’m cool with that. But I do know one thing that most everyone will enjoy, regardless of whether you are a Democrat or a Republican or you have no idea what either of those are…a Death Match between Hillary and Obama. Choose your candidate and let’s get ready to rumble…!

http://www.nypost.com/spsections/hill_vs_obama/

Reader Thoughts: New HIV Prevention Program

The World Bank recently announced a new HIV/AIDS prevention program to be piloted in southern Tanzania that would pay participants to avoid ‘unsafe sex’. While I have been unable to locate any more information regarding this initative, this article from the Financial Times provides a basic overview:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c391a1ce-12ee-11dd-8d91-0000779fd2ac.html

I would like to try something a bit different today. Instead of passing judgement and having you, my readers, passivly read my thoughts and comment only if you feel the urge, I would like to encourage you instead to post your own thoughts, thereby starting a dialogue about this topic. I am very interested to hear your thoughts about a program that pays people for not contracting sexually transmitted diseases (not HIV mind you). Does this novel approach have potential or is it another opportunity to ‘throw money’ at a problem that many feel is intractable? What are the implications of a program like this succeeding; will everyone who is ‘at risk’ eventually be put on the pay roll? I’m looking forward to reading your thoughts.

I’ll start us off. While I think this has potential, my first concern is whether or not this is merely creating more dependencies in an already donor dependent continent? While behavior change can be externally stimulated at the outset, for it to be long lasting, there has to be an internal motivation as well as a clear understanding of how any change will offer a benefit. If the benefit is a financial reward, how does that translate into an internal modus operandi? That should get us started. Fire away!