- 主题发起人 angelonduty
- 发布时间 2007-01-22
美国之音第三季度上019-UNICEF Announces Recovery Plan for Pakistan Earthquake Zone
UNICEF Announces Recovery Plan for Pakistan Earthquake Zone
Pakistan's earthquake killed more than 70,000 people and left another 3.5 million homeless. Almost 10,000 schools were damaged or destroyed. Hospitals, roads, water systems, telecommunications and other infrastructure were knocked out.
The United Nations figures it will take at least a decade to fully reconstruct the earthquake zone.
The U.N. Children's Fund is one of several U.N. agencies participating in Pakistan's recovery effort. UNICEF says it will focus on education and the restoration of public health facilities. It says plans are under way to construct 500 earthquake-resistant schools, 70 rural health centers and 1,000 water supply systems.
UNICEF Spokesman, Damien Personnaz, says the agency will seize this opportunity to build schools in places where none existed before.
Some of the areas there are basically stuck during the winter. It is extremely difficult for young kids to go from their home to the school during the day. So they need to have a kind of semi-boarding schools and that is also something where UNICEF would like to work on. It poses some problems in terms of logistics. The main aim is to bring the schools where the people are and not the opposite.
UNICEF says it has extensive plans to raise the level and extent of education, health care and hygiene awareness. It plans to provide clean water and sanitation.
Personnaz says UNICEF expects the schools and health facilities that will be built in remote villages to become centers where a number of important activities will be provided.
They can go to these specific health centers to get all kinds of immunization activities. They also can be trained. They also can get some school supplies. They also can get some basic medicines. It is very important for the local community, for the lives of these remote villages to know that there is a place where you can get a lot of basic social services.
Personnaz says training will be provided to around 20,000 teachers and 4,000 community health workers, including women health workers. He says this is particularly important because many women will not go to men with their health problems.
He says UNICEF aims to have about 500,000 children enrolled in primary school by mid-2008. He says this will include all the children who went to school before the earthquake struck, plus an additional 30 percent of children who never attended school. He says a big effort will be made to get girls enrolled.
Lisa Schlein, for VOA News, Geneva.
¤注解¤:
1. infrastructure n. 基础下部组织
2. restoration n. 恢复, 修补, 重建
3. hygiene n. 卫生, 卫生学
4. sanitation n. 卫生, 卫生设施
UNICEF Announces Recovery Plan for Pakistan Earthquake Zone
Pakistan's earthquake killed more than 70,000 people and left another 3.5 million homeless. Almost 10,000 schools were damaged or destroyed. Hospitals, roads, water systems, telecommunications and other infrastructure were knocked out.
The United Nations figures it will take at least a decade to fully reconstruct the earthquake zone.
The U.N. Children's Fund is one of several U.N. agencies participating in Pakistan's recovery effort. UNICEF says it will focus on education and the restoration of public health facilities. It says plans are under way to construct 500 earthquake-resistant schools, 70 rural health centers and 1,000 water supply systems.
UNICEF Spokesman, Damien Personnaz, says the agency will seize this opportunity to build schools in places where none existed before.
Some of the areas there are basically stuck during the winter. It is extremely difficult for young kids to go from their home to the school during the day. So they need to have a kind of semi-boarding schools and that is also something where UNICEF would like to work on. It poses some problems in terms of logistics. The main aim is to bring the schools where the people are and not the opposite.
UNICEF says it has extensive plans to raise the level and extent of education, health care and hygiene awareness. It plans to provide clean water and sanitation.
Personnaz says UNICEF expects the schools and health facilities that will be built in remote villages to become centers where a number of important activities will be provided.
They can go to these specific health centers to get all kinds of immunization activities. They also can be trained. They also can get some school supplies. They also can get some basic medicines. It is very important for the local community, for the lives of these remote villages to know that there is a place where you can get a lot of basic social services.
Personnaz says training will be provided to around 20,000 teachers and 4,000 community health workers, including women health workers. He says this is particularly important because many women will not go to men with their health problems.
He says UNICEF aims to have about 500,000 children enrolled in primary school by mid-2008. He says this will include all the children who went to school before the earthquake struck, plus an additional 30 percent of children who never attended school. He says a big effort will be made to get girls enrolled.
Lisa Schlein, for VOA News, Geneva.
¤注解¤:
1. infrastructure n. 基础下部组织
2. restoration n. 恢复, 修补, 重建
3. hygiene n. 卫生, 卫生学
4. sanitation n. 卫生, 卫生设施
美国之音第三季度上020-Women's Life Behind Bars: Punishment or Reform?
Women's Life Behind Bars: Punishment or Reform?
The fastest growing population in the American prison system is women; over 950,000 women are currently under some form of correctional supervision. Some prison reform advocates say time behind bars may pay their debt to society, but society is the loser in the long run because of the often devastating effect incarceration has on female prisoners' families.
After finishing a book on a last chance high school in New York City for troubled teen girls, journalist Christina Rathbone set her sights on the next stop for many of those young women: prison. She spent the next five years interviewing female inmates at MCI Framingham prison in Massachusetts.
"MCI Framingham prison, where I did my research, is the oldest running prison for women in America. It was the perfect location to spend some time because I could tell, through spending time there, the whole history of women in prison in this country, as well as some of the stories of women who are in prison today."
Rathbone says she found many aspects of life behind bars familiar. "Like any building being lived in by 500 to 600 women, it was really a space of women getting together, trying to help each other, perhaps falling into rather bitter cliques. But certainly not a place where women were attacking each other or threatening each other, the way so often happens in men prisons. This comes from the reality that almost none of them are violent offenders. More than two-thirds of men are incarcerated for crimes against people and property, like theft, assault, murder and so forth. The same amount of women, more than two-thirds, are incarcerated for crimes that have to do with bringing pain and injury only to themselves, crimes related to sex abuse and drug abuse."
She was surprised to learn that most of the women at Framingham were the primary caretakers of their children. "The fact that they have been locked up for often long sentences for these minor, nonviolent crimes means that their children are left without any caretaker at all. So not only are we punishing the mothers for their questionable choices, but we're also punishing the generation after them."
In her book, A World Apart: Women, Prison, and Life Behind Bars, Rathbone puts a human face on the statistics and provides often heart-breaking portraits of the women she came to know. "The main character in my book, a woman I call Denise, had a 9-year-old son when she was sent away. And he was 14 by the time she was released. When she was sent away, he was a normal little boy who loved Beanie Babies and ice hockey. By the time she got out, he had been abused by his father, with whom he went to live, removed from his father's care and placed in foster care. There, he was moved around from place to place, and abused, and stolen from, until finally, in a desperate bid for attention, he started to shoplift. By the time Denise finally got out for her five years for her non-violent first-time offense, her own son was in the juvenile facility serving time for shoplifting himself."
"What really concerns me more than anything is the ability to take care of their children." Massachusetts State Representative Kay Khan is a strong advocate for protecting inmates' mother-child relationships.
She has been working on a number of bills that would provide female inmates with the knowledge and means they need to stay in touch with their children. "While they are in prison, the children could have the opportunity to stay with their mothers, and mothers can learn how to bond with their children and how to take care of them, and learn the things that are needed in order to continue to care for their children when they leave the prison. This, I think, can help them recognize what they might need to be doing and thinking about in the future, rather than going back to the life they were in before they came into the criminal justice system."
Author Christina Rathbone says sometimes, something as simple as a free phone call can make a huge difference for children. "Most people in prison can only make collect calls from prison. That means that if their child is in the foster care system, they can never call their children because no state agency accepts collect calls. Many of the children I met and spoke with didn't really understand why it was that their mothers couldn't come home. And more troubling, didn't understand why their mothers couldn't call them on their birthday or at holidays."
Rathbone says while it's crucial to maintain the bond between mothers behind bars and children outside prison, any effort to reform the current criminal justice system must look beyond the end of the women's sentences. "Too large a segment of our population believes that offering education to people in prison is a waste of money, when it has actually been proven time and time again in studies that it costs infinitely less money to educate someone in prison and then have them released and not return to prison than to do nothing with them in there and have them just come right back because it costs an average of about $40,000 a year to hold someone in prison in this country. $40,000 a year! That's more than it costs to go to Harvard and we're getting nothing for it, not even a high school diploma."
Rathbone says these women came into prison under-employed, but if they're given the appropriate educational and training opportunities, they will leave prison with options for making a decent living - and life - for themselves and their children
I’m Faith Lapitus.
¤注解¤:
1. devastating adj. 破坏性的, 全然的
2. clique n. 私党, 小圈子
3. incarcerate vt. 把...关进监狱, 监禁, 幽闭
4. decent adj. 相当好的, 象样的
Women's Life Behind Bars: Punishment or Reform?
The fastest growing population in the American prison system is women; over 950,000 women are currently under some form of correctional supervision. Some prison reform advocates say time behind bars may pay their debt to society, but society is the loser in the long run because of the often devastating effect incarceration has on female prisoners' families.
After finishing a book on a last chance high school in New York City for troubled teen girls, journalist Christina Rathbone set her sights on the next stop for many of those young women: prison. She spent the next five years interviewing female inmates at MCI Framingham prison in Massachusetts.
"MCI Framingham prison, where I did my research, is the oldest running prison for women in America. It was the perfect location to spend some time because I could tell, through spending time there, the whole history of women in prison in this country, as well as some of the stories of women who are in prison today."
Rathbone says she found many aspects of life behind bars familiar. "Like any building being lived in by 500 to 600 women, it was really a space of women getting together, trying to help each other, perhaps falling into rather bitter cliques. But certainly not a place where women were attacking each other or threatening each other, the way so often happens in men prisons. This comes from the reality that almost none of them are violent offenders. More than two-thirds of men are incarcerated for crimes against people and property, like theft, assault, murder and so forth. The same amount of women, more than two-thirds, are incarcerated for crimes that have to do with bringing pain and injury only to themselves, crimes related to sex abuse and drug abuse."
She was surprised to learn that most of the women at Framingham were the primary caretakers of their children. "The fact that they have been locked up for often long sentences for these minor, nonviolent crimes means that their children are left without any caretaker at all. So not only are we punishing the mothers for their questionable choices, but we're also punishing the generation after them."
In her book, A World Apart: Women, Prison, and Life Behind Bars, Rathbone puts a human face on the statistics and provides often heart-breaking portraits of the women she came to know. "The main character in my book, a woman I call Denise, had a 9-year-old son when she was sent away. And he was 14 by the time she was released. When she was sent away, he was a normal little boy who loved Beanie Babies and ice hockey. By the time she got out, he had been abused by his father, with whom he went to live, removed from his father's care and placed in foster care. There, he was moved around from place to place, and abused, and stolen from, until finally, in a desperate bid for attention, he started to shoplift. By the time Denise finally got out for her five years for her non-violent first-time offense, her own son was in the juvenile facility serving time for shoplifting himself."
"What really concerns me more than anything is the ability to take care of their children." Massachusetts State Representative Kay Khan is a strong advocate for protecting inmates' mother-child relationships.
She has been working on a number of bills that would provide female inmates with the knowledge and means they need to stay in touch with their children. "While they are in prison, the children could have the opportunity to stay with their mothers, and mothers can learn how to bond with their children and how to take care of them, and learn the things that are needed in order to continue to care for their children when they leave the prison. This, I think, can help them recognize what they might need to be doing and thinking about in the future, rather than going back to the life they were in before they came into the criminal justice system."
Author Christina Rathbone says sometimes, something as simple as a free phone call can make a huge difference for children. "Most people in prison can only make collect calls from prison. That means that if their child is in the foster care system, they can never call their children because no state agency accepts collect calls. Many of the children I met and spoke with didn't really understand why it was that their mothers couldn't come home. And more troubling, didn't understand why their mothers couldn't call them on their birthday or at holidays."
Rathbone says while it's crucial to maintain the bond between mothers behind bars and children outside prison, any effort to reform the current criminal justice system must look beyond the end of the women's sentences. "Too large a segment of our population believes that offering education to people in prison is a waste of money, when it has actually been proven time and time again in studies that it costs infinitely less money to educate someone in prison and then have them released and not return to prison than to do nothing with them in there and have them just come right back because it costs an average of about $40,000 a year to hold someone in prison in this country. $40,000 a year! That's more than it costs to go to Harvard and we're getting nothing for it, not even a high school diploma."
Rathbone says these women came into prison under-employed, but if they're given the appropriate educational and training opportunities, they will leave prison with options for making a decent living - and life - for themselves and their children
I’m Faith Lapitus.
¤注解¤:
1. devastating adj. 破坏性的, 全然的
2. clique n. 私党, 小圈子
3. incarcerate vt. 把...关进监狱, 监禁, 幽闭
4. decent adj. 相当好的, 象样的
好帖子，我置顶了
大家继续跟楼主学习啊
大家继续跟楼主学习啊
谢谢领导支持!
这里俺休息了几天,留给大家一些时间消化这些听力及其原文.
这里俺休息了几天,留给大家一些时间消化这些听力及其原文.
《美国之音》2006第3季度上001b-City Slickers Learn Ranching Skills...
City Slickers Learn Ranching Skills at 40th Annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival
Dylan Biggs is no Hollywood cowboy. He says the movie version of ranchers on horseback roping frenzied cattle is not his style.
"I am able to get the cattle to do what I want them to do without the use of force and fear, just by virtue of my position, my movement and my energy and my motion. It is a matter of being in the right place, at the right time in the right manner. And ultimately you have to take all that direction from the cattle."
Biggs practices what he calls low-stress livestock handling. He says it is simply good stockmanship.
"Instead of having to run around chasing cattle, I can very calmly ask the cattle to get up, start walking exactly where I want them to go and they actually get there. So, it takes a lot less effort on my part."
Biggs demonstrates with a few gentle cows trucked in from a farm in nearby rural Maryland. The cows seem unfazed by the tourists in the bleachers or by Biggs who walks determinedly among them.
"I want to teach them to start, speed up, slow down, turn left, turn right and stop, just by virtue of my movement and my position."
No need to prod or whip. Biggs says cows are not stupid animals.
"Cattle learn very quickly. In anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half, you can have a herd of 150 cattle …you can have them softened up and [you can] put them where you want them without any fuss."
Calm cows walk with heads down below their shoulders like they are trailing in for a drink of water. Biggs says keeping them that way is good for the cattle and good for the pocketbook.
"Happy, healthier contented animals are healthier animals. They gain better. They have less sickness, less disease. Their immune system is healthier. It saves me medicines. It saves me on death loss..."
Biggs says low-stress handling is gaining attention as more consumers make choices based on how cattle are raised. His humane approach engaged tourists unaccustomed to seeing cows downtown.
"You can see the intelligence in the animals come out…"
"I usually thought that moving them around was something that meant you had to resort to violence or roping or what you see in the cowboy movies. These were very interesting techniques for getting cows to do things they want to do."
Biggs says his methods are similar to what old-time cowboys did on the range before the rise of large factory farms. Biggs uses his skill back on his family ranch in Alberta, Canada, but he also conducts private workshops in low-stress livestock management all across Canada and the United States.
Rosanne Skirble, VOA news.
¤注解¤:
1. rancher n. <美>牧场主, 农场工人, 牛仔
2. livestock n. 家畜, 牲畜
3. pocketbook n. 笔记本, 皮夹, 经济来源
4. immune adj. 免疫的
City Slickers Learn Ranching Skills at 40th Annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival
Dylan Biggs is no Hollywood cowboy. He says the movie version of ranchers on horseback roping frenzied cattle is not his style.
"I am able to get the cattle to do what I want them to do without the use of force and fear, just by virtue of my position, my movement and my energy and my motion. It is a matter of being in the right place, at the right time in the right manner. And ultimately you have to take all that direction from the cattle."
Biggs practices what he calls low-stress livestock handling. He says it is simply good stockmanship.
"Instead of having to run around chasing cattle, I can very calmly ask the cattle to get up, start walking exactly where I want them to go and they actually get there. So, it takes a lot less effort on my part."
Biggs demonstrates with a few gentle cows trucked in from a farm in nearby rural Maryland. The cows seem unfazed by the tourists in the bleachers or by Biggs who walks determinedly among them.
"I want to teach them to start, speed up, slow down, turn left, turn right and stop, just by virtue of my movement and my position."
No need to prod or whip. Biggs says cows are not stupid animals.
"Cattle learn very quickly. In anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half, you can have a herd of 150 cattle …you can have them softened up and [you can] put them where you want them without any fuss."
Calm cows walk with heads down below their shoulders like they are trailing in for a drink of water. Biggs says keeping them that way is good for the cattle and good for the pocketbook.
"Happy, healthier contented animals are healthier animals. They gain better. They have less sickness, less disease. Their immune system is healthier. It saves me medicines. It saves me on death loss..."
Biggs says low-stress handling is gaining attention as more consumers make choices based on how cattle are raised. His humane approach engaged tourists unaccustomed to seeing cows downtown.
"You can see the intelligence in the animals come out…"
"I usually thought that moving them around was something that meant you had to resort to violence or roping or what you see in the cowboy movies. These were very interesting techniques for getting cows to do things they want to do."
Biggs says his methods are similar to what old-time cowboys did on the range before the rise of large factory farms. Biggs uses his skill back on his family ranch in Alberta, Canada, but he also conducts private workshops in low-stress livestock management all across Canada and the United States.
Rosanne Skirble, VOA news.
¤注解¤:
1. rancher n. <美>牧场主, 农场工人, 牛仔
2. livestock n. 家畜, 牲畜
3. pocketbook n. 笔记本, 皮夹, 经济来源
4. immune adj. 免疫的
《美国之音》2006第3季度上002b-Congress Debates Free and Open Internet
Congress Debates Free and Open Internet
At an Internet café in downtown Washington D.C, consumers enjoy the benefits of a free and unfettered World Wide Web. Up on Capitol Hill, lawmakers are debating something called Net neutrality, a provision of the new telecommunications bill that would keep network owners from controlling the content and services that flow over their network.
Ben Scott is Policy Director for Free Press, a consumer organization that advocates Net neutrality. "Net neutrality is a simple concept that lays at the base of communications law for the Internet. It is, simply put, non-discrimination. It means that if you own a network, you can't discriminate against the content or services that flow over your network."
But network owners, such as Verizon, Comcast, and A.T.&T. don't see it that way. Under Net neutrality they would have to continue charging all customers the same rate for use of their networks. They argue the marketplace should dictate cost -- and want the option to charge content companies at any rate they see fit, just as different banks set A.T.M. fees as they see fit. The network owners see Net neutrality as corporate welfare for Internet content companies such as Microsoft, Google and E-bay.
Scott Cleland is with Net Competition.org, a lobbying organization that represents network owners. "They want a special deal for just a few companies. And we don't think that is smart or the way to run the Internet. The best way to guard a free and open Internet is free and open competition, not regulating the Internet."
But the networks are not getting much support form the public. All the major U.S. consumer groups have endorsed Net neutrality. They say the network owners' opposition to Net neutrality has nothing to do with free market competition. Ben Scott says they are more interested in being able to selectively discriminate what they charge content providers. "You can make a pile of money if you can force every content provider on the Internet to pay you a double toll. Once to get on the Internet and once to reach customers at a guaranteed quality of service."
The consumer groups say if content providers are forced to pay more to network owners, they would have no choice but to pass those costs on to Internet users.
Scott adds, the cost will be borne by consumers. "If you want to guarantee that your site downloads then you are going to have to pay an extra fee. Are Google and Amazon and Yahoo just going to swallow hard and take that hit, take that money out their pocket and give it to Verizon? Of course not, they are going to pass those costs along to the consumer."
Convergence is another issue on the Net neutrality battleground. Both network owners and service provider companies are looking to expand into the other's businesses. The network owners want to get involved in e-commerce and compete with companies such as Microsoft, Yahoo, and E-bay. Likewise, the content providers want to move into the communications field by providing phone, television and movie services over the web.
Scott Cleland -- who represents the network owners -- argues that Net neutrality would regulate his clients out of the e-commerce business. "Right now Microsoft, Yahoo, and E-Bay, they are converging into the communications sector. What they want is regulation that prevents competition the other way that broadband companies shouldn't be able to converge, integrate and compete with e- commerce. We think that is a classic double standard and Americans can see that."
Consumer groups don't buy that argument either. They say what the network owners really want is the ability to control the marketplace as they move into e-commerce and compete with the big web content providers.
Scott says, "The Internet is already a free market. It is already doing its thing for consumers. What they are talking about is changing the free market into a market that has a gatekeeper. And the gatekeeper will be the network owner. The network owner will decide which websites work better and which don't. That is not a free market. That is a market dictated by the owner of the network. That's a monopoly market much like cable TV."
A Senate committee has rejected the Net neutrality provision as part of the larger telecom bill. Analysts say it is unlikely the full Senate will have a chance to vote on the bill before the summer recess.
What is at stake is the business model and structure of the Internet, as we know it. Web companies around the globe are watching what happens in the U.S., looking at the new Internet business model network owners are developing and contemplating whether it will be profitable for them.
Jeff Swicord, VOA NEWS.
¤注解¤:
1. unfetter v. 解放
2. neutrality n. 中立, 中性
3. endorse v. 在(票据)背面签名, 签注认可
4. convergence n. 集中, 收敛
Congress Debates Free and Open Internet
At an Internet café in downtown Washington D.C, consumers enjoy the benefits of a free and unfettered World Wide Web. Up on Capitol Hill, lawmakers are debating something called Net neutrality, a provision of the new telecommunications bill that would keep network owners from controlling the content and services that flow over their network.
Ben Scott is Policy Director for Free Press, a consumer organization that advocates Net neutrality. "Net neutrality is a simple concept that lays at the base of communications law for the Internet. It is, simply put, non-discrimination. It means that if you own a network, you can't discriminate against the content or services that flow over your network."
But network owners, such as Verizon, Comcast, and A.T.&T. don't see it that way. Under Net neutrality they would have to continue charging all customers the same rate for use of their networks. They argue the marketplace should dictate cost -- and want the option to charge content companies at any rate they see fit, just as different banks set A.T.M. fees as they see fit. The network owners see Net neutrality as corporate welfare for Internet content companies such as Microsoft, Google and E-bay.
Scott Cleland is with Net Competition.org, a lobbying organization that represents network owners. "They want a special deal for just a few companies. And we don't think that is smart or the way to run the Internet. The best way to guard a free and open Internet is free and open competition, not regulating the Internet."
But the networks are not getting much support form the public. All the major U.S. consumer groups have endorsed Net neutrality. They say the network owners' opposition to Net neutrality has nothing to do with free market competition. Ben Scott says they are more interested in being able to selectively discriminate what they charge content providers. "You can make a pile of money if you can force every content provider on the Internet to pay you a double toll. Once to get on the Internet and once to reach customers at a guaranteed quality of service."
The consumer groups say if content providers are forced to pay more to network owners, they would have no choice but to pass those costs on to Internet users.
Scott adds, the cost will be borne by consumers. "If you want to guarantee that your site downloads then you are going to have to pay an extra fee. Are Google and Amazon and Yahoo just going to swallow hard and take that hit, take that money out their pocket and give it to Verizon? Of course not, they are going to pass those costs along to the consumer."
Convergence is another issue on the Net neutrality battleground. Both network owners and service provider companies are looking to expand into the other's businesses. The network owners want to get involved in e-commerce and compete with companies such as Microsoft, Yahoo, and E-bay. Likewise, the content providers want to move into the communications field by providing phone, television and movie services over the web.
Scott Cleland -- who represents the network owners -- argues that Net neutrality would regulate his clients out of the e-commerce business. "Right now Microsoft, Yahoo, and E-Bay, they are converging into the communications sector. What they want is regulation that prevents competition the other way that broadband companies shouldn't be able to converge, integrate and compete with e- commerce. We think that is a classic double standard and Americans can see that."
Consumer groups don't buy that argument either. They say what the network owners really want is the ability to control the marketplace as they move into e-commerce and compete with the big web content providers.
Scott says, "The Internet is already a free market. It is already doing its thing for consumers. What they are talking about is changing the free market into a market that has a gatekeeper. And the gatekeeper will be the network owner. The network owner will decide which websites work better and which don't. That is not a free market. That is a market dictated by the owner of the network. That's a monopoly market much like cable TV."
A Senate committee has rejected the Net neutrality provision as part of the larger telecom bill. Analysts say it is unlikely the full Senate will have a chance to vote on the bill before the summer recess.
What is at stake is the business model and structure of the Internet, as we know it. Web companies around the globe are watching what happens in the U.S., looking at the new Internet business model network owners are developing and contemplating whether it will be profitable for them.
Jeff Swicord, VOA NEWS.
¤注解¤:
1. unfetter v. 解放
2. neutrality n. 中立, 中性
3. endorse v. 在(票据)背面签名, 签注认可
4. convergence n. 集中, 收敛
《美国之音》2006第3季度上b003-Despite Progress in Fight Against AIDS, Challenges Remain...
Despite Progress in Fight Against AIDS, Challenges Remain Even in US
An unusual report in a medical journal published 25 years ago last month gave the first scientific description of the disease we now know as AIDS. Experts say that while great strides have been made in the diagnosis and treatment of this global malady, there is still widespread public ignorance about AIDS and how to prevent its spread.
In 1981, doctors for the first time identified symptoms of the virus that caused AIDS in a group of five homosexual men in California who had developed a rare form of pneumonia. Their mysterious symptoms were initially called GRID - short for gay-related immune disorder. Doctors continued to use the term GRID until the late 1980's when the name was changed to HIV, short for Human Immuno-deficiency Virus. Today, there are 40 million people in the world living with HIV and the syndrome illness it spawns, known as AIDS.
Dr. Alan Greenberg is a physician and professor at the George Washington University Medical School in Washington, D.C. "Twenty-five years is a long time, and it's a great time of reflection in the medical community about some of the successes that have occurred in the fight against HIV/AIDS, but also about the challenges facing us in the years ahead." Dr. Greenberg has seen some of these successes first-hand at the George Washington University Hospital, where he treats AIDS patients as a volunteer physician.
Scientists developed the first AIDS treatment program in the late 1980's, but only a cocktail of drugs discovered in 1996 has been able to control the virus and prolong the life of HIV-positive individuals. Challenges remain, including finding a cure.
In the 1980s the medical community had thought it would be able to cure AIDS in just a few years. Philippe Chiliad is the medical director of the Whitman-Walker Clinic in Washington, D.C., which treats 2,000 HIV-positive patients in the nation's capital. "The big disappointment is to see how difficult it has been really to control the disease and probably how difficult it will be to find a cure."
The Washington area has one of the highest rates of new HIV infections in the United States. The privately-funded Whitman-Walker Clinic is on the front lines of the city's fight against AIDS. The clinic opened as a gay and lesbian health center three decades ago, treating sexually transmitted diseases. After AIDS hit the gay community in the 1980s, the clinic expanded its work to HIV treatment and prevention. Today its services also include counseling, food and legal services.
The Whitman-Walker clinic offers educational programs and is supporting efforts by the Washington, D.C. government to have all city residents tested. Dr. Chelliade says that as many as one in three HIV-positive people in Washington, D.C. don't know they carry the virus. That number is close to the national percentage.
Chelliade adds that other patients who know they are HIV positive don't get medical attention. "We need to better understand why people who are aware that they are HIV positive do not enter care. Lots of these issues, like people not getting tested, are related to issues of poverty and access to health care in general. This is the area where not a lot has been done."
Thomas Milburne was diagnosed with HIV in 1985 and has had full-blown AIDS since February 1994. He refused to get diagnosed until his body began to succumb to the virus. "I was scared because I didn't know what to expect. At that time it was sort of like: just prepare yourself to die because there weren't that many options."
Milburne says two things kept him going: a positive attitude, and the latest medications. "It was not as bad as you thought. If you take your medication and you take care of yourself and you pay attention to what your doctors tell you, it's not the end of the world. You can deal with it and you can have a normal and happy life."
The number of HIV infections and related deaths reached a peak in the mid 1990s. The rate has dropped steadily since 1996.
Dr. Alan Greenberg of George Washington University says there is reason to be hopeful that the disease can be conquered. But he says finding a cure and eliminating AIDS will require sustained moral, political and financial commitments from governments around the world. "The scientific community has realized that without the larger support, political will and financial commitment of government, there is a limit to what medicine can do."
Ten years ago, the international community responded to the AIDS epidemic. It formed UN-AIDS, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, which coordinates the global responses and resources of ten U-N system organizations. The organization works to prevent and treat AIDS in 75 countries around the world.
U.N. efforts, increased private philanthropic support for the fight against AIDS, and a steady stream of medical advances, have all helped slow the spread of the virus, and extend and improve the lives of those who have been infected. No one can say yet when, or if, AIDS will be cured. But the quest continues.
I am Ana Hontz Ward in Washington.
¤注解¤:
1. stride v. 大步走(过), 跨过, n. 步幅
2. diagnosis n. 诊断
3. pneumonia n. [医] 肺炎
4. lesbian n. 女性同性恋者
Despite Progress in Fight Against AIDS, Challenges Remain Even in US
An unusual report in a medical journal published 25 years ago last month gave the first scientific description of the disease we now know as AIDS. Experts say that while great strides have been made in the diagnosis and treatment of this global malady, there is still widespread public ignorance about AIDS and how to prevent its spread.
In 1981, doctors for the first time identified symptoms of the virus that caused AIDS in a group of five homosexual men in California who had developed a rare form of pneumonia. Their mysterious symptoms were initially called GRID - short for gay-related immune disorder. Doctors continued to use the term GRID until the late 1980's when the name was changed to HIV, short for Human Immuno-deficiency Virus. Today, there are 40 million people in the world living with HIV and the syndrome illness it spawns, known as AIDS.
Dr. Alan Greenberg is a physician and professor at the George Washington University Medical School in Washington, D.C. "Twenty-five years is a long time, and it's a great time of reflection in the medical community about some of the successes that have occurred in the fight against HIV/AIDS, but also about the challenges facing us in the years ahead." Dr. Greenberg has seen some of these successes first-hand at the George Washington University Hospital, where he treats AIDS patients as a volunteer physician.
Scientists developed the first AIDS treatment program in the late 1980's, but only a cocktail of drugs discovered in 1996 has been able to control the virus and prolong the life of HIV-positive individuals. Challenges remain, including finding a cure.
In the 1980s the medical community had thought it would be able to cure AIDS in just a few years. Philippe Chiliad is the medical director of the Whitman-Walker Clinic in Washington, D.C., which treats 2,000 HIV-positive patients in the nation's capital. "The big disappointment is to see how difficult it has been really to control the disease and probably how difficult it will be to find a cure."
The Washington area has one of the highest rates of new HIV infections in the United States. The privately-funded Whitman-Walker Clinic is on the front lines of the city's fight against AIDS. The clinic opened as a gay and lesbian health center three decades ago, treating sexually transmitted diseases. After AIDS hit the gay community in the 1980s, the clinic expanded its work to HIV treatment and prevention. Today its services also include counseling, food and legal services.
The Whitman-Walker clinic offers educational programs and is supporting efforts by the Washington, D.C. government to have all city residents tested. Dr. Chelliade says that as many as one in three HIV-positive people in Washington, D.C. don't know they carry the virus. That number is close to the national percentage.
Chelliade adds that other patients who know they are HIV positive don't get medical attention. "We need to better understand why people who are aware that they are HIV positive do not enter care. Lots of these issues, like people not getting tested, are related to issues of poverty and access to health care in general. This is the area where not a lot has been done."
Thomas Milburne was diagnosed with HIV in 1985 and has had full-blown AIDS since February 1994. He refused to get diagnosed until his body began to succumb to the virus. "I was scared because I didn't know what to expect. At that time it was sort of like: just prepare yourself to die because there weren't that many options."
Milburne says two things kept him going: a positive attitude, and the latest medications. "It was not as bad as you thought. If you take your medication and you take care of yourself and you pay attention to what your doctors tell you, it's not the end of the world. You can deal with it and you can have a normal and happy life."
The number of HIV infections and related deaths reached a peak in the mid 1990s. The rate has dropped steadily since 1996.
Dr. Alan Greenberg of George Washington University says there is reason to be hopeful that the disease can be conquered. But he says finding a cure and eliminating AIDS will require sustained moral, political and financial commitments from governments around the world. "The scientific community has realized that without the larger support, political will and financial commitment of government, there is a limit to what medicine can do."
Ten years ago, the international community responded to the AIDS epidemic. It formed UN-AIDS, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, which coordinates the global responses and resources of ten U-N system organizations. The organization works to prevent and treat AIDS in 75 countries around the world.
U.N. efforts, increased private philanthropic support for the fight against AIDS, and a steady stream of medical advances, have all helped slow the spread of the virus, and extend and improve the lives of those who have been infected. No one can say yet when, or if, AIDS will be cured. But the quest continues.
I am Ana Hontz Ward in Washington.
¤注解¤:
1. stride v. 大步走(过), 跨过, n. 步幅
2. diagnosis n. 诊断
3. pneumonia n. [医] 肺炎
4. lesbian n. 女性同性恋者
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