Joan Kaufman is the founding director of the AIDS Public Policy Training Program at the Kennedy School of Government at
Harvard University and a lecturer in social medicine at Harvard Medical School. She is also a senior scientist at the Schneider
Institute for Health Policy at the Heller School of Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. Kaufman directs the
International AIDS Vaccine Initiative's China program and serves as special advisor to the director of the Wellesley Centers for Women.
Kaufman discusses the definition of reproductive health unveiled at the groundbreaking Cairo conference. At this
conference, issues of reproductive health replaced the previous focus on population control at Cairo. She discusses critiques of
population control and the demographic realities related to population density and AIDS. She describes the characteristics in the
reproducing population and provides information about contraceptive use.
"What we have here is a need for a new agenda. We have a false dichotomy between reproductive health and AIDS," says
Kaufman. The response to AIDS is highly focused on treatment, not incorporating the Cairo agenda. She suggests a need to resituate the
reproductive health agenda within the development agenda.
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