"Meanwhile, Bush's neglect of the domestic epidemic has borne fruit.  New data show that the government is set to fail at its 2001 goal to cut new domestic HIV infections in half by 2005.  Far from declining, HIV infections plateaued at 40,000 a year during 2002 and 2003; this year, documented HIV diagnoses actually rose.  Could we be seeing the impact of Bush's disinvestment in proven approaches to HIV prevention, while hundreds of millions go to abstinence-only programs that can mention condoms only in terms of their failure rates?"  Esther Kaplan, The Nation, 2004.(Read Full Post)