Getting the message: Good news on treatment. Bad news on propaganda (AIDS)

The Economist ^ | June 5, 2008

[reaganaut1]

...

But the second charge, concerning prevention, is harder to excuse. It has been known for years that HIV is hard to pass on during normal heterosexual intercourse. Only one copulation in 500-1,000 with an infected individual will do so. The risk comes with certain behaviour (anal intercourse, which risks tearing the lining of the gut; and injecting drugs using dirty needles), certain professions (prostitutes of both sexes) and certain ways of life (multiple, simultaneous lovers, rather than serial polygamy). Aiming propaganda at heterosexual teenagers is (outside the special case of Africa) a waste of money. It is, however, often an easier course than tackling drugs, whores and buggery, which many politicians would prefer to pretend have no place in their countries.

Both Dr Chin and Dr Pisani are hard on what they think was a refusal to see Africa as a special case. For years, the continent was, instead, taken as an awful warning of what might happen elsewhere. Both suggest that the disease is severe in Africa not just because this is where it started, but also because many Africans (of both sexes) have multiple, simultaneous lovers. There are married sugar-daddies with teenage girlfriends; lorry drivers and mine workers, who spend weeks or months away from home; wives whose husbands spend weeks or months away from home in lorries and mines. Africans do not have more lovers than other people in the course of their lives, but they do tend to have more at the same time. That creates networks, rather than chains, of transmission, making it easier for HIV to spread. A politically correct refusal to offend by stating that this makes a difference meant, once again, that efforts elsewhere were aimed at preventing a heterosexual epidemic that was never going to happen.

[ravingnutter]

Related article:

World Health Organization Admits Threat of Global AIDS Epidemic Is Over

[Jeff Chandler]

drugs, whores and buggery

In other words: The Democrat Base.

[353FMG]

“In other words: The Democrat Base.”

And their RINO enablers.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

This article is an example of why I always read The Economist. BTW, IMHO, they used the correct term: "serial polygamy" -- it's what most people mean when they say "serial monogamy".

[Last Dakotan]

In other words: The Democrat Base.

Big LOL

[count-your-change]

In the U.S. if a person wants to know whether they are infected HIV they can take a test, which will be followed by a second to confirm the results.
The estimate of infected persons in Africa is about 25-30 million but how does anyone know? The fact is they don't.
The key word is “estimate” since 50 or 60 million HIV tests have not been done or ever will be done. Nor is a census taking place seeking out infected persons.
It's like a climate change model with proxies for missing data. If one infected person is found it's “estimated” that there must so many others not yet found, add the two figures together and voila’, a good propaganda piece. Next year add an “estimated” increase and on and on.
But this scam has been going on for years.