Intolerant UWI

The University of the West Indies (UWI) has fired Professor Brendan Bain, one of the leading experts in the world in the diagnosis and treatment of HIV/AIDS, as the director of the Caribbean HIV/AIDS Regional Training (CHART) Network. The reason they have given is that Professor Brendan Bain has "lost the confidence and support of a significant sector of the community which the CHART programme is expected to reach".

But who is the CHART Network expected to reach? Consult the official website of the CHART Network and you will see that "the mission of the CHART Network is to continually strengthen the capacity of national health-care personnel and systems to provide access to quality HIV & AIDS prevention, care, treatment, and support services for all Caribbean people". The purpose of CHART is to train health-care workers in Jamaica and across CARICOM to be better able to prevent HIV & AIDS, and to treat people already infected with the virus.

So the primary "community which the CHART programme is expected to reach" is CARICOM health-care workers. And those trained CARICOM health-care workers will interact with two different secondary groups: a much larger group - those who DO NOT have the virus (to target them with prevention strategies); and a much smaller group - those who already have HIV/AIDS (to treat their symptoms and their infection). These two groups include every human living within CARICOM, including you who read this.

no evidence

Therefore, to say that Professor Brendan Bain has "lost the confidence and support of a significant sector of the community which the CHART programme is expected to reach" has to be put in context. There is no evidence before us that Professor Bain has lost the confidence of CHART'S primary target group - CARICOM health-care workers; and there is no evidence before us that Professor Bain has lost the confidence of the vast majority of Caribbean people (who do not have HIV/AIDS). Has Prof Bain lost the confidence of the HIV/AIDS community with respect to the care and treatment of HIV/AIDS, or is there another purpose to the project? Maybe the CHART Network has a hidden agenda.

It seems that a coalition of a few dozen groups which lobby for the interests of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual (LGBT) persons has captured the agenda of CHART. They want to turn this health project into a forum to lobby CARICOM governments to repeal their anti-buggery laws.

Their claim is that by giving testimony in the Belizean Supreme Court at the request of the side wishing to retain the buggery laws, Professor Bain has put himself in a position of conflict of interest with respect to his job. In other words, anyone who directs the CHART Network must be in favour of decriminalising buggery; and the UWI, because it is the executing agency for the CHART Network, must also be in favour of decriminalising buggery. And if the vice-chancellor of the UWI refused to dismiss Professor Bain, the next call might be the removal of the vice-chancellor, or the removal of the CHART Network from the purview of the UWI. The tail seems to be wagging the dog.

BURDEN OF BAIN'S TESTIMONY

The burden of Professor Bain's testimony, inter alia, is that "the relative risk of contracting HIV is significantly higher among men who have sex with men (MSM) in Belize than in the general population". This directly refutes one of the claims of the gay lobby: that if laws making buggery illegal are repealed, the incidence of HIV/AIDS infection should decline. Common sense and Professor Bain's research suggest otherwise: if buggery is illegal, some people might be deterred from that behaviour, and, therefore, they won't be infected; if buggery becomes legal, more people will indulge in it, and, therefore, more people will get infected.

Professor Bain's affidavit, based on data, was that in countries which have decriminalised buggery, MSM have a higher HIV/AIDS infection rate. Either this is so or it is not so. If it IS NOT so, Professor Bain should be discredited. If it IS SO, by saying so, Professor Bain is advancing the stated mission of the CHART Network, which is to reduce the incidence of HIV/AIDS infections, and he should be commended, not fired. If it IS SO, the buggery laws should not be repealed, and it is the LGBT lobby which is pursuing a course of action which will increase HIV/AIDS infections.

Peter Espeut is a Roman Catholic deacon. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.

TO OUR READERS:

The Gleaner welcomes your views on any issue. Letters must bear the writer's signature, scripted, printed or typed name, full address and telephone number where possible.

When submitting a pen name, kindly submit full name separately; names and addresses will be withheld on request. Letters to the editor of 300 words or less have the best chance of being published. We routinely condense letters and seek to correct errors of fact, spelling and punctuation. We may use letters in other print and electronic products of The Gleaner Company Ltd.

Please send your letters to The Gleaner Company Ltd, PO Box 40, 7 North Street, Kingston; fax to 922-6223 or email letters@gleanerjm.com.