American Taxpayer's Pay for Condom Balloons

[Queasy]

Just the headline of this is worth the post

Friday, Jan. 17, 2003
You Pay for Foreigners' Condom Balloons

The federal government is shipping so many taxpayer-funded contraceptives to the Philippines that the people are wasting them.

Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit said, according to the New York Post: "People running health centers are using the pills to grow orchids and the condoms for party balloons."

 

[Scarpozzi]

....for once, I'm speechless.

 

[yowolabi]

but it makes you wonder...


why do we have such an interest in stopping the creation of new Filipinos?

What exactly are we scared of?

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: yowolabi
but it makes you wonder...


why do we have such an interest in stopping the creation of new Filipinos?

What exactly are we scared of?

wtf?

 

[Fausto]

Originally posted by: yowolabi
but it makes you wonder...


why do we have such an interest in stopping the creation of new Filipinos?

What exactly are we scared of?

Actually, we're worried about putting a lid on the explosion of STDs in that region of the world since new strains have a nasty tendency to show up in the US a few months after they appear in SE asia. Half the new multi-drug-resistant strains of gonorrhoeae and chlamydia that we see here at the CDC are from that area. This is money well spent IMO.

 

[Scarpozzi]

Why don't they just send Woody Allen posters over there to promote Abstinance? That's got to be less wasteful and more effective.

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: Fausto1

Originally posted by: yowolabi
but it makes you wonder...


why do we have such an interest in stopping the creation of new Filipinos?

What exactly are we scared of?

Actually, we're worried about putting a lid on the explosion of STDs in that region of the world since new strains have a nasty tendency to show up in the US a few months after they appear in SE asia. Half the new multi-drug-resistant strains of gonorrhoeae and chlamydia that we see here at the CDC are from that area. This is money well spent IMO.

Very true. If a bunch of demented Americans and other foreigners didn't see SE asia as a sexual paradise/playground, STDs in that region wouldn't be anywhere near the problem that it is today.

 

[Fausto]

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: Fausto1

Originally posted by: yowolabi
but it makes you wonder...


why do we have such an interest in stopping the creation of new Filipinos?

What exactly are we scared of?

Actually, we're worried about putting a lid on the explosion of STDs in that region of the world since new strains have a nasty tendency to show up in the US a few months after they appear in SE asia. Half the new multi-drug-resistant strains of gonorrhoeae and chlamydia that we see here at the CDC are from that area. This is money well spent IMO.

Very true. If a bunch of demented Americans and other foreigners didn't see SE asia as a sexual paradise/playground, STDs in that region wouldn't be anywhere near the problem that it is today.

Yep. The epidemiology would astound you. You can track a new strain from SE asia.....to the west coast...and then sit back and watch it work its way across the country. The healthcare costs involved in treating this stuff (especially since so many are drug-resistant) is huge relative to purchasing a bunch of condoms.

This surveillance is part of what my division here at the CDC does. Health clinics will send us samples of these bugs, we'll do strain typing and drug resistance assays and then put all the data together for the epi guys to crunch. Just FYI.

 

[db]

Condoms do make amazingly large balloons though, heh.

 

[Krye]

well they need to...for ppl like me...

cause, as best put by my wife (and copywritten by her too),
"This is the internet, everyone has a large penis."