Bush Touts Drugs’ ‘Lazarus Effect’ on AIDS Victims

Wall Street Journal. DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania — President Bush’s current tour of Africa is widely viewed as a celebration of his historic efforts in battling poverty and disease here. But listen closely to Mr. Bush and his aides, and you might conclude that a higher power is at work — and it’s achieving near-miraculous results.
[George Bush]

This week, U.S. health officials touted a “spectacular” decline in malaria among children on the impoverished island of Zanzibar, just off the coast here. “From a malaria-positive rate of around 20% in 2005 in children … the rate today is so low it can barely be measured,” said a new research paper.

American officials, including Mr. Bush himself, talk frequently about the “Lazarus effect” being produced for AIDS victims by the anti-retroviral drugs the U.S. is providing. “Communities once given up for dead are coming back to life,” he said in a speech previewing his trip.

In his speech, the president cited the example of a pregnant Tanzanian woman who learned she was HIV-positive, then enrolled in a program that prevents mother-to-child transmission. The woman, Tatu Msangi, went on to deliver a healthy, HIV-free daughter whom she named Faith, Mr. Bush said.

America’s approach isn’t just about pushing its strategic interest, but about following a moral and even religious calling, the president suggests, in language that frequently invokes religious themes. “As I [tell] people all the time, to whom much is given, much is required,” Mr. Bush said, paraphrasing a biblical passage. He was speaking in the tiny West African nation of Benin, where he began his tour on Saturday before being welcomed by tens of thousands in the Tanzanian capital of Dar es Salaam. “Well, we’ve been given a lot in the United States, and I believe we’re required to help brothers and sisters in need.”

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