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IN BRIEF
As election nears, U.S.
force in Iraq rises
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Unit
ed States is expanding its military
force in Iraq to the highest
level of the war even higher than
during the initial invasion in March
2003 — in order to bolster security
in advance of next month’s national
elections.
The 12,000-troop increase will last
only until March.
Brig. Gen. David Rodriguez,
deputy operations director of the
Joint Staff, said Wednesday that the
American force will expand from the
current level of 138,000 troops to
about 150,000 by January.
The previous high for the U.S.
force in Iraq was 148,000 on May 1,
2003, when President Bush declared
that major combat operations were
over. The initial invasion force in
cluded thousands of sailors in the
Persian Gulf and other waters, plus
tens of thousands of troops in Kuwait
and other surrounding countries.
Bush asks Canada for
support in Iraq, Mideast
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — Presi
dent Bush asked Canadians on
Wednesday to move beyond their
opposition to the Iraq war and get
behind his vision of democracies
blooming from Baghdad to the
West Bank.
“Sometimes even the closest of
friends disagree, and two years ago
we disagreed about the course of ac
tion in Iraq,” Bush said, standing at
the side of Canadian Prime Minister
Paul Martin.
But, Bush said, “there is no dis
agreement at all with what has to be
done in going forward. We must
help the Iraqi people secure their
country and build a free and demo
cratic society.”
On a bridge-building trip to Ameri
ca’s northern neighbor, Bush conced
ed that the United States can be a dif
ficult “elephant” to live next to but
delivered a forceful defense of his ap
proach to combating terrorism.
Ukraine's opposition
scores big victory
KIEV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s oppo
sition scored key victories Wednes
day in its bid to scrap a disputed
presidential election as parliament
voted no confidence in the
government and European-brokered
talks provided momentum toward a
new ballot.
Opposition leader Viktor
Yushchenko urged throngs of sup
porters to stay on the streets until
plans for what he demanded — a re
run of the Nov. 21 runoff with Krem
lin-backed Prime Minister Viktor
Yanukovych — are worked out,
which he said could be as early as
Dec. 19.
— The Associated Press
r
AIDS prevention
does not match
previous pledge
The annual rate of HIV infections remains unchanged
despite the government's vow to cut the number in half
BY DANIEL YEE
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ATLANTA — Nearly a million
Americans now have the AIDS virus,
and the nation’s ability to keep oth
ers from becoming infected still lags,
despite a government pledge four
years ago to “break the back” of the
AIDS epidemic by 2005.
The campaign, launched by the
Centers for Disease Control and Pre
vention in February 2001, intended
to cut in half the estimated 40,000
new HIV infections that have oc
curred every year since the 1990s.
However, the rate of new cases re
mains about the same, according to
CDC data released Wednesday as
part of the federal health agency’s
commemoration of World AIDS Day.
“We have a ways to go before we
reach the mark of reducing new in
fections by half in the United States,”
said Dr. Ronald Valdiserri, the direc
tor of the CDC HIV and AIDS preven
tion program. He called the country’s
HIV infection rate “relatively stable.”
“Clearly we want to continue, and
are continuing, to fund programs to
reach out to people who are high-risk
and are not infected,” he added.
In 2001, the CDC’s campaign fo
cused on outwardly healthy people
who did not realize they had HIV —
about one-fourth of those infected.
Officials said targeting them was key,
because if they knew they were in
fected, they would be more likely to
take steps not to spread the virus.
Such an effort “could possibly
break the back of die epidemic in the
United States,” the CDC’s Dr. Robert
Janssen said in 2001.
But the agency found that just
targeting people who didn’t know
they had the AIDS virus was not
enough. So last year, the CDC
shifted gears, focusing on counsel
ing those who knew they had HIV
in an attempt to prevent them
from spreading the virus.
Yet some advocacy groups say that
particular effort fails to focus on drug
users or sexually active young men,
which advocacy groups say is key in
preventing new infections.
“It just doesn’t seem like much is
really happening,” said Terje An
derson, executive director of the
Washington-based National Associ
ation of People Living with AIDS.
“There just is a lack of imagination
or spark in terms of the kinds of
programs they support. I think they
are politically afraid.”
However, one AIDS expert said
that it is difficult for health officials to
measure exactly how many new HIV
infections there are each year.
“Forty-thousand is an estimate
that is averaged over time. The
changes can’t be tracked easily from
year to year,” said Dr. James Curran,
dean of Emory University’s Rollins
New HIV/AIDS cases
From 2000 to 2003, new cases
of HIV/AIDS were diagnosed in
125,800 persons who resided
in the 32 states surveyed.*
HIV by race, ethnicity
51% Black, 32% White,
Hispanic . Other
How disease was
transmitted
Men who have sex
with men, MSM 44.1%
Heterosexual contact
with known infected
person 34.3
Injection drug use, IDU 16
MSM and IDU 4.1
Other 1.6
*Ala., Alaska, Ariz., Ark., Colo.,Fla., Idaho,
Ind.. Iowa, Kan., La., Mich., Minn.,Miss.,
Mo., Neb., Nev., N.J., N.M., N.C., N.D.,
Ohio, Okla., S.C., S.D., Tenn., Texas,
Utah, Va„ W.Va., Wis., Wyo.
SOURCE: Centers for Disease AP
Control and Prevention
School of Public Health and the
CDC’s former AIDS chief during
the 1980s.
Valdiserri said the CDC is work
ing on a way to accurately deter
mine how many people are infect
ed with HIV each year, but the
system is still under development.
Still, Curran said more attention
needs to be paid to AIDS.
“What has concerned many of us
in the United States is the lack of at
tention to the domestic AIDS prob
lem and complacency on behalf of
high-risk groups,” Curran said,
adding that more counseling, testing
and education is needed.
The CDC believes up to 950,000
people in the United States are infect
ed with HIV and up to 280,000 of
them don’t know it, Valdiserri said.
The rate of HIV diagnoses in the
United States increased slightly — by
1 percent — between 2000 and 2003,
from 19.5 people per 100,000 popu
lation to 19.7 per 100,000 in the 32
states surveyed by the CDC.
“The reality is, to cut the number
of infections, we need to do more —
you can’t always do more with less.
We desperately need more re
sources,” Anderson said.
Holiday Gift Guide
on stands Monday, December 6.
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Be your own boss.
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and existing entrepreneurs.
Call for free consultation
1-866-280-5857
Mortar Board Senior Honor Society
proudly awards
School of Music
professor Mark Levy
with the
Professor of
the Term Award
for his dedication to
music and his students.
Congratulations, Mark Levy!
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