Jezebel
clips
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clips
Madonna On Helping Malawi Orphans: "It Gives You Such An Appreciation For Life"
Madonna's new documentary, I Am Because We Are, aired last night on the Sundance Channel. The film explores the lives of of children in Malawi orphaned by AIDS, and, in a clip (posted after the jump) Madonna talks about her own loss: "I can't compare my suffering to other children, but when I was six years old, my mother died," she says. "I think I really have a connection to children who lose their parents." In another clip from the film, also seen after the jump, Madonna says, "People always ask me why I chose Malawi…I tell them I didn't," she claims. "It chose me." More » -
proof positive
HIV Proven To Be Older Than John McCain (And His Bad AIDS Policies)
Scientists researching the origins of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus now estimate that it made the jump from chimps to humans in Cameroon decades earlier that initially thought — sometime between 1884 and 1924. They date the virus to that time period based on viral samples discovered from two different people in what is now Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1959 and 1960, samples that different enough to push back the date of HIV's origins to the 19th century. Scientists think that the movement from rural to urban areas helped spread the virus, which might have otherwise died off — which could have implications for preventative efforts, because, as Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says, "The only way we are going to get our arms around this is through prevention." Try telling that to John McCain. More » -
Leftovers
Planned Parenthood Brings Sex Ed To Hipsters • Number Of Child Brides Rising
Planned Parenthood has launched a new sex education website called Take Care Down There that spreads the message about sexual health with hipsters in t-shirts. • The number of child brides in poor countries who marry before the age of 18 will double to 100 million in the next decade, putting them at risk of AIDS, death in childbirth, poverty, and lack of education. • A new report by the Poppy Project has found that there are over 921 brothels in London being advertised in newspapers with a "large and growing" number of young women who are trafficked as sex slaves. • More » -
Hundreds of women marched in the streets of Lobamba, Swaziland yesterday to protest a shopping trip taken by 9 of King Mswati III's 13 wives to Europe and the Middle East. Protesters said the country can't afford a shopping spree when a quarter of the nation is on food aid and money is needed for anti-retroviral medication. Swaziland, the last absolute monarchy in Africa, is one of the world's poorest nations and it is estimated that 40% of the population is infected with HIV. [UPI, CIA Factbook]
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Marvelyn Brown was 19 when she found out she was HIV positive. It was in 2003, and on NPR yesterday, she said she barely knew anything about the disease when she was diagnosed. She said her biggest worry was the prom, and when Marvelyn told her previous partners that she was infected, some of them didn't even know that HIV was sexually transmitted. Activist Rae Lewis Thornton says that some of Generation Y, particularly young black women, are ignorant of HIV and AIDS because they see it as only happening to others: to gays, to whites, to IV drug users. "Every time you're having unprotected sex with a man," Thornton said, "you're putting your life against that sexual experience." Marvelyn has written a book about her coming to terms with HIV called The Naked Truth: Young, Beautiful, and (HIV) Positive. [NPR]
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Planet In Peril
AIDS Risk On The Rise As Starving Women Trade Sex For Food
I'm back from the sunny shores of Lake Superior, a place brimming with walleyes and Dairy Queens and sweet corn, and now feel horribly guilty for my vacation gluttony upon reading that the rise of global food prices coinciding with an East African drought have driven women into prostitution, and with that exchange of sex for food comes a swath of new AIDS infections. According to Reuters, 50 million more people went hungry in 2007 compared to 2006. Stuart Gillespie of the International Food Policy Research Institute spoke yesterday at a major AIDS conference in Mexico: "Recent studies in Botswana, Swaziland, Malawi, Zambia and Tanzania have shown associations between acute food insecurity and unprotected transactional sex among poor women." Even if newly infected women are getting AIDS medication, the scarcity of food in several regions including the South Pacific and Sub-Saharan Africa make it difficult for the medicine to be effective. More » -
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Leftovers
Anti-Circumcision Movement Gains Ground In Egypt • Vaginal Infection Linked To HIV
A grass-roots movement against female circumcision in Egypt (where 96% of married women are circumcised) is gaining momentum with mothers considering circumcision for their daughters. • Male contraceptive options will "perpetually remain five to 10 years away." Why? Pharmaceutical companies believe they aren't marketable, although many men disagree. • Nazmunnahar Beauty had to struggle through orphanhood and poverty to make it to Olympics, much like the rest of her Bangladeshi teammates. • Keren Dunaway, a Honduran tween who was born with HIV, is one of the most prominent AIDS activists in Latin America, where she edits an educational children's magazine about the virus and speaks at major conferences. More » -
A couple hours ago I sort of subconsciously baited the perpetrators of something I've found increasingly irritating about this site: sometimes people make the place feel unsafe not only for jokes but for actual true things, such as "sex without condoms feels better." (Click picture for more)
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Random Acts Of Kindness
Aw, Alicia Keys. She went to Africa! To help the behbehs with AIDS! Also, she made a film about the experience, which you can check out here. [Alicia in Africa via AdRants]
