I ended my last post on an optimistic note. I should have known better. Canada’s health minister is sharpening the guillotine, and hopes to chop down North America’s only supervised injecting site despite a court ruling that the execution would be unconstitutional.
“In my opinion, supervised injection is not medicine; it does not heal the [...]
Drug Warriors have been gloating about the imminent closure of North America’s only supervised injecting site for drug addicts. (”The injection site is expected to close next month,” reported one conservative group. “Congratulations to members who have worked so hard to keep the pressure on the powers to be to close down this madly insane [...]
We’ve all known for ages that there are essentially two HIV epidemics in the world: a heterosexual epidemic in East and Southern Africa (some would say all of sub-Saharan Africa) and an epidemic driven by drug injection, sex between men and commercial sex in the rest of the world. Now there’s another distinction, too. There [...]
Last month, Thailand banned “cosmetic castration” for the under 18s. Cosmetic castration: now there’s a concept. As if lopping the balls off an adolescent were of a piece with smoothing some wrinkles out of a furrowed brow.
The Ministry of Public Health is concerned that young men are going through the cheap, easy castration process [...]
The First Lady of Uganda, Janet Museveni, thinks that increasing access to HIV treatment is making Ugandans more promiscuous, according to a story in Sunday’s The New Vision. We’ve certainly seen evidence of that in rich countries, and there doesn’t seem to be any reason it wouldn’t be the same in poorer parts of the [...]
They went down well with the breakfast crowd at Hay. Especially with the gay Bishop.
There’s another clutch of reviews of The Wisdom of Whores posted to the “What They’re Saying” page.
They include Rachel Holmes in The Times (she thinks I’m a nerd, in the best possible way), Michael Fitzpatrick in The Guardian (who seems vaguely disapproving), Stephanie Merritt in the Observer (who is seduced by the mysteries of epidemiology), [...]
Anyone out there going to the Hay Festival this weekend? Because I’m dashing to the Netherlands, I had to give up a nice, gentle mid-day spot on Bank Holiday Monday in favour of a talk on Sunday morning at 9. Mornings are not my best time of day, and Sunday mornings rarely creep in to [...]
Two of the Republican senators accused of holding to ransom some US$ 50 billion in US funding for HIV in Africa are fighting back. They are also ill-educated, badly confused, or lying through their teeth.
After a Washington Post editorial accused them of foot-dragging on AIDS funding in part because they worried that money might be [...]
It’s been a busy day on the airwaves. Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, I managed to hit BBC World TV’s HardTalk interview and be on BBC Radio 4’s Start the Week, both in one day.
On HardTalk, Stephen Sackur spent a lot of time quizzing me about my mafia connections. Comments have ranged from [...]
