SansPretense

Check it out, from FT.com:

Thousands of people in Africa will be paid to avoid unsafe sex, under a groundbreaking World Bank-backed experiment aimed at halting the spread of Aids.

The $1.8m trial – to be launched this year – will counsel 3,000 men and women aged 15-30 in southern rural Tanzania over three years, paying them on condition that periodic laboratory test results prove they have not contracted sexually transmitted infections.

The proposed payments of $45 equate to a quarter of annual income for some participants

…

Carol Medlin from the University of California, San Francisco, one of the researchers, said: “We hope this ‘reverse prostitution’ will make people think hard about the long-term consequences of their short-term behaviour.”

The Tanzanian experiment is a big advance in efforts to test public health ideas more rigorously, with some participants placed in a control arm not offered payment in order to track the effects of the programme precisely.

“Conditional cash transfers” have already been used in Latin America to motivate poor parents to attend health clinics, and have their children vaccinated and schooled. Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, last year unveiled a project to boost school attendance.
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So we’re now paying people to NOT do something that can lead to their death? Isn’t that like paying someone to not commit suicide? We’re paying someone to do something that they SHOULD be doing anyway cause if they don’t, then they die. I suppose if this works then it’ll be cheaper than having to take care of someone after they get HIV and can’t afford the medication. It just rubs me the wrong way.

In the spirit of the above, I propose they give free whiskey to men who promise not to drink and drive. Where do I sign up?