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In a stunning display of insensitivity and ignorance, Belvedere Vodka and singer Usher have joined with Product (Red) to launch a special edition bottle and give half its profits to „fight HIV/AIDS in Africa,“ under the misleading tagline “Helps Save Lives.” Promoting and selling booze to fight HIV/AIDS?! There are just so many things wrong with this, we can hardly decide where to start. Let’s consider the facts that are missing from this campaign:
* Product (Red) must have conveniently missed the recent news release that alcohol kills more people annually than AIDS, tuberculosis, or violence – a sobering 4% of all deaths worldwide, according to the World Health Association.
* Alcohol use is a leading factor in the spread of HIV. Alcohol consumption is associated with two major modes of HIV transmission: high-risk sexual behaviors and injection drug use. … (Source: Marin Institute, 03/09/11)

Dar es Salaam. Tanzania yesterday launched a nationwide campaign to tackle excessive drinking.The government’s initiative against irresponsible drinking has the backing of local brewers and is supported by international organisations with the United States Agency for International Development (Usaid) being its major financier.
The campaign will mainly be conducted through radio programmes. The campaign, dubbed Chonde Chonde! Ulevi Noma! (Please, alcoholism is dangerous), is a six-month drive that will end in September this year.
“For example, people who drink excessively more often have unprotected sex than those who do not or those who drink responsibly. Tacaids (The Tanzania Commission for Aids) lists alcohol consumption as an important factor in HIV/Aids prevalence.”
According to the Tacaids HIV Prevention Strategy for Tanzania Mainland (2009), men who drink have an HIV prevalence rate that is three times higher than those who do not drink. The prevalence rate is twice higher among women who drink than those who don’t. (Source: Alcohol Reports, 03/08/11) thecitizen.co.tz, 03/03/11

More people drink themselves to death in northwest New Mexico than anywhere else in the state, which is one of the worst states in the country in terms of alcohol-related deaths per capita.
Three counties in northwest New Mexico — San Juan, McKinley and Rio Arriba — have the highest concentration in the state of people who died from various alcohol-related issues from 2007 through 2009, according to reports recently published by the New Mexico Health Department. … (Source: Alcohol Reports, 02/16/11)

…AIDS Second
Today the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that alcohol is to blame for just about 4% of, or 2.5 million deaths worldwide annually. Alcohol attributable injuries are of a growing concern to the public health community, with alcohol-related injuries such as road traffic accidents, burns, poisonings, falls and drownings making up more than a third of the disease burden attributable to alcohol consumption. AIDS was a close second with 2.1 milion deaths in 2009.
Yet alcohol control policies are weak and remain a low priority for most governments despite drinking’s heavy toll on society from road accidents, violence, disease, child neglect and job absenteeism. … (Source: Medical News Today, 02/11/11) WHO: Global status report on alcohol and health analyses our Online-Comment: For those persons who don’t like them, figures from other sources are always incorrect. But nobody can deny that governments do not care enough about them. And that is the main sorrow of the WHO. The alcohol industry could not hinder that in May 2010 the WHO General Assembly accepted a resolution on a global alcohol strategy. Now it puts pressure on the national governments that they don’t implement the proposals in their legislation. The civil societies come off a loser.

Content, e.g.: * Alcohol, HIV and Public Health
* Alcohol and tobacco ‘more harmful than cannabis and ecstasy’
* Tax increases ‘superior to minimum prices’
* Facebook updates alcohol guidelines
* Eurocare Presses for Ingredient Labeling on Alcohol
* Convergence in teenage drunkenness in Western countries (Source: GAPA, The Globe)

Introduction: The alcohol and tobacco industry sell products that can be dangerous to our health. For this reason, governments take action by, for example, raising taxes, enforcing age limits, prescribing warning labels and restricting advertising and sponsoring.
Literature shows that the “industry”—the alcohol and tobacco companies—have traditionally worked closely together, sharing information and concerns about regulation. They have used similar arguments to defend their products in order to prevent or delay restrictions being placed on them (Bond, et al. 2010).
The intention of this brochure is to inform professionals about the attempts made by the alcohol industry to influence alcohol policy globally and to subsequently arm them against the industry’s methods to prevent effective policies from being made. (Source: EUCAM, 01/02/11) „The seven key messages of the alcohol industry“ (pdf) Comment: Very often public health professionals who are not involved in alcohol control policy are not informed what’s happening in this field. And in the political debate they are helpless. This brochure could make a difference.

Active urges for more coherent strategies to stop the spread of HIV/ AIDS.
Active – sobriety, friendship and peace commemorates the World AIDS Day by sending our compassion to millions of victims and by urging decision makers to do more in fighting HIV/ AIDS.
The European Commission announced two things on the eve of World AIDS Day: a 10% increase in contributions, spending €1.3 billion to fight AIDS as well as a stronger effort to improve “early detection” allowing better and earlier treatment of the disease.
“Our members welcome the effort to step up action. But spending money is not enough. Improving testing is not enough. What we need is a coherent approach to fighting the AIDS epidemic. We want an effort to preventing HIV infections. That means that the EU, national governments as well as development NGOs need to take into consideration the role of alcohol,” according to Andrea Lavesson, President of Active.
The link between alcohol and the spread of HIV/ AIDS has been long known. But alcohol’s role in the AIDS epidemic continues to be neglected. Both in 2008 in Cape Town and in 2009 at the WHO expert conference in Stockholm alcohol’s role in the AIDS epidemic were on the agenda and the picture of the reviews became clear: Alcohol use increases risk taking in both injection drug use and sexual intercourse; it also increases the number of different sexual partners; the disease develops much faster in infected persons who drink. Alcohol weakens the immune system. …(Source: Press release Active, 12/01/10) ActiveHIVday2010

… between injection drug users (IDUs) and non-IDUs who report sexual partnerships with IDUs.
Conclusions: Greater prevalence of sexual risk behaviors among non-IDUs who report partnerships with IDUs, compared to IDUs themselves, suggests a potential mechanism for spread of HIV beyond the IDU population. Interventions to reduce HIV transmission should address alcohol consumption among non-IDUs who report sexual partnerships with IDUs, and methamphetamine use and the propensity of having sex when high among IDUs. (Source: BMC Public Health 2010), 10:676doi:10.1186/1471-2458-10-676 Published: 5 November 2010

There is limited information on alcohol problem drinking, which has been associated with sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV, among female bar/hotel workers in Africa. This paper aimed to identify the individual- and facility-level determinants of alcohol problem drinking in this setting. Problem drinking was defined based on the CAGE alcohol screening scale. (Source: Alcohol Reports, 11/20/10) springerlink.com

An international website dedicated to providing current information on news, reports, publications,and peer-reviewed research articles concerning alcoholism and alcohol-related problems throughout the world. Postings are provided by international contributors who monitor news, publications and research findings in their country, geographical region or program area of interest. All postings are entered without editorial or contributor opinion or comment.
Alcohol and HIV/AIDS Volume 33, Number 3, 2010 (11/14/10)