Prevention Matters

The Best/Worst Idea awards are a regular feature of Prevention Matters, the blog of Partnership for Prevention. Each week, Partnership for Prevention's staff will choose the designees based on nominations of items in the previous week's news submitted by members, staff and the public at large. To submit a nomination or for more information, contact Damon Thompson at dthompson@prevent.org.

BEST

Government officials in China, a nation where the response to HIV has long been hampered by a reticence to discuss sexual matters in public, are finally getting real about AIDS. The Ministry of Health made headlines with an announcement that 'sexual transmission is now the main cause of new while Health Minister, Chen Zhu, broke another major taboo when he announced publicly that almost one third of new infections were among male homosexuals. Meanwhile, South African President Jacob Zuma, taking a concrete step away from the government’s previous delays in providing drugs to treat AIDS and prevent women from infecting their newborns, declared Tuesday in a national address on World AIDS Day that drug therapy for H.I.V.-positive pregnant women and babies would be broadened and start earlier.

Billed as "alcohol for the health-conscious" the new, patent-pending Devotion Vodka is being marketed to active, fitness-oriented individuals who also enjoy an active nightlife. But not everybody’s drinking to that. “The health argument this company and its president has latched onto and promoted – that alcohol is good for your health – has been debunked as myth,” says the California-based The Marin Institute: “Yet PR flacks and media outlets continue to push news stories like the introduction of Devotion as another example of the healthy benefits of alcoholic products.”