In the us, the Bush administration is increasingly resorting to using financial aid as an arm-twisting tool to propagate abstinence. It recently ordered a San Francisco group -- stop aids Project -- to either halt its "explicit programmes that promote sexual activity", or risk losing us $0.5 million in annual federal grants. The us spends us $10.8 billion on aids annually. While us $0.9 billion is for preventive measures, us $3.2 billion is spent on research. In effect, the stress is on cure rather than prevention.
Experts fear that the ripples of the shift in us policy are being felt by ngos promoting condoms in India, too. "We cannot do what we really believe in," laments an official of psi, which is funded by us organisations. Debabar Banerji, emeritus professor, Centre for Social Medicine and Community Health (csmch), Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, attributes India's new anti-condom stance to its toeing the us line: "The wb is completely controlled by the us.