Bono and Oprah launch (RED) products

Bono and Oprah have gone on a shopping spree launching the (Product) Red line, a collection of products including phones, clothing, and a special-edition iPod to raise money for HIV / AIDs in Africa. There’s a MySpace site about (Product) Red, too. Buy (Red)!

 

Rick Warren says the Church should be taking the lead in helping with the HIV/AIDs crisis

Rick Warren, pastor of the Saddleback Church, of the America’s big churches, and author of the bestseller book “The Purpose Driven Life”, says that the Church should be there helping those facing HIV / AIDS, not pointing the finger and judging. He said that the Church is ideally set up to help:

“We have the widest distribution network. There are churches in every village around the world. We have the most volunteers. You know there are 2.3 billion people who are claiming to be followers of Christ. That’s bigger than China or even the United Nations and we speak more languages than the United Nations. “Then we have local credibility, where pastors in a village are respected and credible; much more than any government or any business because they’ve been caring for people in the tough times of life, the highs and the lows, the good and the bad. They marry and they bury and they’re there in every season of life. “So the second reason that I feel that this pandemic can’t be stopped without the Church is that the church has the moral authority. We have the longest record of caring for people in sickness. A lot of people don’t know that 95 percent of all the hospitals in the world were started by Christians and also 95 percent of all the schools in the world were also started by Christians. Usually the first hospital or the first school in a nation was started by Christian missionaries.”

Warren then made some comments about AIDS now affecting women in huge numbers:

“Sixty percent plus of the people who have HIV/AIDS are women,” he stated. “But it is driven by male behavior, and so the number-one way people get it today is through heterosexual sex. Then the second way is through drug IV use. The third is other needles that are infected. Really only about five percent of AIDS infections today around the world total are from gay relationships. So there are a lot of myths that need to be corrected about HIV/AIDS.”

One of Rick Warren’s aims is to set up AIDS testing centers in churches around the world, then if the results are positive, the Church would be situated to help throughout the course of the illness.

“Regardless of how people got it, we must love them and care for them the way Jesus would.”

http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/s06080079.htm

 

Aboriginal health issues

The Victorian Dept of Health reports some of the significant differences in health between indigenous Australians and the rest of the population:

• The infant mortality rate is three times higher than the national average.
• Indigenous people are nearly twice as likely to be admitted to hospital than non-indigenous.
• Aboriginal people have much higher rates of infection from many contagious and potentially life-threatening diseases, including HIV/AIDS, TB, meningitis and gonorrhea.
• Indigenous people have a 18-19 year shorter life expectancy than the rest of the population. The average life span for an Aboriginal male is 57 years, and for a female is 62 years.

Why this is happening in this day and age, in a civilized country?

 

Bill and Melinda Gates: We need to put the power of HIV Prevention in the hands of women

Bill and Melinda Gates, in a joint keynote at and AIDS Conference, said that world leaders need to put the power of HIV prevention in the hands of women, by accelerating the search for microbicides and other HIV prevention tools.

Bill Gates said that stopping AIDS is the Gates Foundation’s top priority.