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Since there is no HIV test available in Africa...

Where do you get your info? Biker bars?

You'll be surprised to learn they actually have cement buildings in Africa, and toilets, and hospitals, and families, and televisions, and HIV tests.

Here's an interesting statistic from the CDC that I haven't found an explanation for:

Take two junkies, one black and one white. Identical socio-economic backgrounds, same age, same health...everything equal, except one is black and one is white. The black junkie is 14 times as likely to contract AIDS as the white junkie.

14 times.

As far as medical stats go, that's astounding.

But we're not supposed to think about it; certainly not bleed over it, as you caution me. Because if we were, we'd see the dying faces of millions of black children on network news every night.

Instead, we watch "Survivor."

A late night Ping to #270 to you, too, X. (I've got to start reading these things in order)

Prayers for the President's strength and stamina, and for the safety of all our own.

I've heard that the AIDS crisis in Africa is based on cases that have been diagnosed by syptoms rather than by HIV tests. Is that accurate?

Other than that, I've noticed your concern with this issue over the last few days. What did you think of the President's speech last night? He hit strongly on the AIDS in Africa theme.

What about the speech overall?

You'll be surprised to learn they actually have cement buildings in Africa, and toilets, and hospitals, and families, and televisions, and HIV tests.

HIV test[s] are too expensive for the WHO to administer to every suspected patient. Instead the WHO has the following diagnostic policy

”AIDS in Africa was defined by the World Health Organization in their Banguie meeting as a combination of fever, persistent cough, diarrhea, and a 10% loss of body weight in two months. No HIV or any other test is required. “

Take two junkies, one black and one white. Identical socio-economic backgrounds, same age, same health...everything equal, except one is black and one is white. The black junkie is 14 times as likely to contract AIDS as the white junkie. 14 times.

So you adduce from this and the ideas of virus conspiracy folks that the military-industrial complex is depopulating Africa? I don't think there's any proof.

I looked around a bit for info on African AIDS testing standards. One finds many descriptions like the following one:

Notwithstanding, unlike the West, in Africa AIDS is diagnosed without any laboratory tests, patients are classified as AIDS cases without laboratory proof that they have either immunodeficiency or HIV infection. All Africans need to have are various clinical conditions. But the conditions accepted as forming the "S" (syndrome) of "AIDS" in Africa bear no relationship to AIDS in the West.

In the West, AIDS consists of a person's having one or more of approximately 27 relatively rare diseases. In Africa, AIDS as defined by the World Health Organisation 1986/87 Bangui African AIDS definition is no more than a collage of common non-specific symptoms and signs such as cough, fever and diarrhoea, and a few diseases such as tuberculosis (TB) and a cancer called Kaposi's sarcoma, diseases which have been endemic in Africa for generations.

I don't find any compelling reason to believe that HIV has a true affinity only for blacks and sodomites. But I do know there is a lot of money and politics involved in maintaining the notion of a heterosexual AIDS crisis in Africa. But there is no actual proof of this in Africa. Even if there were, no one has demonstrated that the transmission was by normal heterosexual means.