Thanks to a research grant of $3.9 million from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Yale University will create a videogame designed to teach youngsters how to best avoid being infected by the HIV virus.
The grant will be distributed over the course of five years and enable the project, which will be led by Yale School of Medicine Assistant Professor of Medicine Lynn Fiellin M.D. Titled Retro-Warriors, the game will be created with different cultures in mind, in order to spread its message to adolescents around the globe.
The game’s main goal is stated as “teaching minority adolescents sex, drug and alcohol negotiation and refusal skills.” It’s proposed that instead of just preaching about things that could lead to catching HIV, the game would contain a role-playing aspect enabling those using it to participate in and learn from such risky behaviors.
Fiellin stated:
Access to the Internet is growing in developing countries and these technologies could be transferred to adolescents in countries experiencing a growing HIV epidemic but which have limited access to targeted risk-reduction strategies.
Upon completion the game will be subjected to a clinical trial in a New Haven, Connecticut community center.
Via Kotaku, Thanks Andrew!
Comments
Re: $3.9M Grant to Fund Yale Game That Will Teach HIV ...
LMAO! I have a solution for kids: Just tell them to stay abstinent & to not share needles if they use drugs w/friends. Easy as that!
"It's better to be hated for who you are, then be loved for who you are not." - Montgomery Gentry
Re: $3.9M Grant to Fund Yale Game That Will Teach HIV ...
My question is, how long after this game comes out is it used by some crackpots in Africa as "proof" that white people in America are trying to kill them? I only ask because this is thrown out almost every time there's an attempt by anyone to try and limit the spread of AIDS over there.
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You KILL Vampires. You don't DATE them.
Re: $3.9M Grant to Fund Yale Game That Will Teach HIV ...
White people in America ARE trying to kill Africans. Just look at the US circumcision activists over there, telling everyone that getting circumcised will prevent the spread of HIV. Heck, they're even on the verge of convincing the World Health Organization that it's a good idea. It didn't work in the US where almost everyone was circumcised at the time HIV entered the country, but heck, the pro-circ folks want to really give it a try in Africa - I mean what could go wrong?.
Right now, people in Africa are being taught that condoms prevent the spread of HIV - which is true. But if the pro-circumcision crowd get their way - and it's looking like they will, once most of those young African teens and 20 year olds in dirt poor villages get circumcised in the new circumcision programs, they're going to think they're immune, and they're going to have unprotected sex like it was going out of style.
If folks think the African AIDS epidemic is out of control now, just wait a few years, 'cos if the circumcision activists get their way, we ain't seen nothing yet.
Re: $3.9M Grant to Fund Yale Game That Will Teach HIV ...
3.9mil to tell people to get themself and there future partners checked for STDs before having sex? Where can I sign up?
Re: $3.9M Grant to Fund Yale Game That Will Teach HIV ...
Christ, 3.9m to fund a game that will basically say "Use a condom" and wont get played by the people who could most use that knowledge anyway.
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I LIKE the fence. I get 2 groups to laugh at then.
Re: $3.9M Grant to Fund Yale Game That Will Teach HIV ...
After reading the abstract (and due to the age of the targeted group), I get the impression that the message is going to be a bit closer to "don't have sex, period." But I agree, I don't foresee this being very successful.
Andrew Eisen
Re: $3.9M Grant to Fund Yale Game That Will Teach HIV ...
So they are going the tried, tested and proven woefully inadequate Christian route as opposed to the common sense route.
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I LIKE the fence. I get 2 groups to laugh at then.
Re: $3.9M Grant to Fund Yale Game That Will Teach HIV ...
Oh, you mean abstinence? You do realize that it is the only 100% effective method of avoiding unwanted prenancies and STDs right?
I agree that teenagers need to learn more than just abstinence, but to completely ignore it is just as bad as focusing on it completely.
Of course I am of the opinion that sex education should be the responsibility of the parent and not people that have no vested interest in the children they are teaching.
E. Zachary Knight
Oklahoma City Chapter of the ECA
http://www.theeca.com/chapters_oklahoma
E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
OK Game Devs
Random Tower
Re: $3.9M Grant to Fund Yale Game That Will Teach HIV ...
You also realize that "abstinence" has a far FAR higher rate of failure than a condom right?
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I LIKE the fence. I get 2 groups to laugh at then.
Re: $3.9M Grant to Fund Yale Game That Will Teach HIV ...
Here is my final word on the issue.
Abstinence has a 100% success rate in preventing unwanted pregnancy and STDs. It is when people choose to stop abstaining that those problems arise.
E. Zachary Knight
Oklahoma City Chapter of the ECA
http://www.theeca.com/chapters_oklahoma
E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
OK Game Devs
Random Tower
Re: $3.9M Grant to Fund Yale Game That Will Teach HIV ...
Re: $3.9M Grant to Fund Yale Game That Will Teach HIV ...
It's an odd sensation, having shared your perspective with every prior comment I've read, to suddenly want to adamantly disagree with you.
Now what are you disagreeing with here? That abstaning does not result in 100% protection from unwanted pregancy and STDs or that it is only after chossing not to abstain that those problems arise?
Using condoms have a less than 100% success rate in preventing unwanted pregancies and STDs. Birth Control has a less than 100% success rate in preventing unwanted pregancies.
Yet, if someone makes the decision to abstain, they will never get pregnant nor contract an STD. (except for rare cases of tainted blood transfusion)
What really fails in abstinence only education programs is their inability to instill a compelling reason to abstain.
E. Zachary Knight
Oklahoma City Chapter of the ECA
http://www.theeca.com/chapters_oklahoma
E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
OK Game Devs
Random Tower
Re: $3.9M Grant to Fund Yale Game That Will Teach HIV ...
Abstinence has no failure rate. Failure of the person to apply x does't mean that x failed. You don't say that a condom as failed when someone chose not to use it.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." -Albert Einstein
Re: $3.9M Grant to Fund Yale Game That Will Teach HIV ...
Re: $3.9M Grant to Fund Yale Game That Will Teach HIV ...
You would think gamers on this site would learn from JT not to generalize or sterotype. Apparently not all have. Certainly not you, corten. The whole "can't resist" argument is based off of some absurd belief and sterotype that teens can't help but have sex or that sex is some unresistable force. I'm sorry, but when did "oh, I couldn't resist the urge" become a good excuse for ANYTHING!!! No matter how you feel on the safe sex issue, anyone can see this "can't resist" belief as crap. There is a choice to being abstinent or not. Don't insult those who are by implying that they are forced, and don't insult those who aren't by implying they have no real choice on whether they can screw or not. I really don't like it when people throw around BS. And that is quite a lot of it you just showed me. Reality? Hah! I don't think you understand what reality is. And you know what else? I'm am sick of people including in their arguements that their point is, in fact, "reality", as though such a statement proves that they are right. If not prove, then somehow strengthen their belief.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." -Albert Einstein
Re: $3.9M Grant to Fund Yale Game That Will Teach HIV ...
Re: $3.9M Grant to Fund Yale Game That Will Teach HIV ...
"Sex is both healthy and natural at that age..."
For 9 to 14-year-olds?
"...every savvy kid has always seen straight through to that truth -- That there isn't any good reason to refrain."
Avoiding disease and pregnancy always seemed like pretty compelling reasons to me.
Andrew Eisen
Re: $3.9M Grant to Fund Yale Game That Will Teach HIV ...
"Avoiding" disease? HA, what about afterwards, maybe stopping the tides or the earths rotation?
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I LIKE the fence. I get 2 groups to laugh at then.
Re: $3.9M Grant to Fund Yale Game That Will Teach HIV ...
Not sure what you're getting at. Don't have sex and and you will avoid contracting sexually transmitted diseases (unless you have really bad luck with a blood transfusion or something).
Andrew Eisen
Re: $3.9M Grant to Fund Yale Game That Will Teach HIV ...
"I'm sorry, but when did "oh, I couldn't resist the urge" become a good excuse for ANYTHING"
It's a pretty good excuse for doing the housework, or the shopping.
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I LIKE the fence. I get 2 groups to laugh at then.
Re: $3.9M Grant to Fund Yale Game That Will Teach HIV ...
Maybe they'd have better luck designing a video game that teaches adults the importance of parenting their children instead of making a game to do it for them.
Andrew Eisen
Re: $3.9M Grant to Fund Yale Game That Will Teach HIV ...
You probably wouldn't get 3.9 million in grant money then though.
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I LIKE the fence. I get 2 groups to laugh at then.
Re: $3.9M Grant to Fund Yale Game That Will Teach HIV ...
And even if you did, would anyone play it? And if they played it, would the game have the desired result? I personally doubt it.
Andrew Eisen
Re: $3.9M Grant to Fund Yale Game That Will Teach HIV ...
And many parents probably won't let their kids see this because it teaches them about sex.