HEINOUS:

Cuba praised for its Aids programme (Clive Cookson, February 16 2003, Financial Times)

Cuba has much to teach the world about tackling Aids, the American Association for the Advancement of Science heard on Sunday. A wide-ranging prevention and treatment programme, backed by strong political action, has given the Caribbean country the lowest prevalence of Aids disease and HIV infection in the western hemisphere - and one of the lowest rates in the world. [...]

As soon as Aids appeared on the island, an aggressive HIV screening programme swung into action, with compulsory testing for all expectant mothers, people with sexually transmitted diseases and sexual contacts of HIV patients. There was also extensive voluntary testing. More than 20m HIV tests have been performed on the Cuban population since 1986, Dr Barksdale said. At the same time condoms were introduced to Cuba and promoted to prevent sexual transmission of HIV.

The most controversial part of the programme - at least among outside observers - was compulsory quarantining of everyone who tested positive in special HIV sanatoria. This was relaxed in 1994, when long-term residence became voluntary, but anyone who is newly diagnosed still has to go to a sanatorium for "eight weeks of education," Dr Barksdale said.

This is just vile, not unlike congratulting the Nazis for their efforts to control Tay Sacks disease. Castro's regime has been notoriously repressive towards homosexuals, like the dissident writer Reinaldo Arenas. Just look at the measures even this article talks about: forced testing, quarantine, and re-education. Obviously if we recreate the political environments that made homosexuality difficult to consumate it will reduce AIDs cases, but is that what people want, homophobic repression on a global scale? Posted by Orrin Judd at February 18, 2003 2:51 PM