Africa isn’t dying of Aids

The Spectator (U.K.) ^ | 12/13/03 | Rian Malan

[Tacis]

This kind of research isn't going to cut into the revenue stream of the African dictators and UN royalty, is it?

[tallhappy]

In the 80's they kept saying that huge numbers of Americans of all kinds would get HIV and die. 10% 20% up and up...

But we are in America and people can see with their own eyes everyone isn't dying of AIDS.

But Africa is far away and remote. And they can tell stories of weird sexual practices etc...

[EdReform]

Ping

[WL-law]

Brilliant article.

[John H K]

What has kept this stuff alive is that AIDS is unique in that the both the Far Left AND the Social Conservative Right had an interest in sowing AIDS panic, and thus there are no real checks and balances (other than brave souls like Michael Fumento, etc.)

Gay activist groups obviously had a vested interest in getting as much research money as possible, and the Far Left of course embraced the issue in order to beat up on "uncaring" conservative governments, etc.

HOWEVER, the Social Conservative Right really didn't provide any opposition to the numbers, or the idea that AIDS was rampant in the heterosexual community or about to become so, because they really liked the idea of using AIDS to terrify people into only having sex with their spouses in a marriage, and if you didn't you were gonna die.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Great post!

[anymouse]

More inconvenient facts to refute PC-driven pseudo science's justification for making a big grab for our wallets.

[maryz]

Interesting article. I was a bit disappointed that he didn't address the claim that AIDS in Africa is of a different strain from those elsewhere and is easily transmitted through heterosexual intercourse.

Read anything recently about this?

[jeremiah]

Someday, when we are much older or gone, the medical historians will look upon our medicine men as heathens, and proclaim themselves as much superior, learning nothing from the HIV+ = AIDS hysteria.

[1066AD]

Because Africa is disorganised and, in some parts, unknowable,
Well, looks like Rummyspeak is mutating at least ...

[jasonalvarez]

AIDS in Africa is not of a different strain, it just has a different definition there. It is assumed that people who die of TB, malaria, or any other disease related to poverty/malnutrition died of AIDS. Keeps the gravy train rolling...

[quadrant]

Giving computers to public health professionals (who by their nature have a vested interest in finding the spread of disease) was as prudent as givng computers to real estate developers.
Once real estate developers had computers (and LOTUS 1-2-3 programs) they could make any proposed project, however foolish, look profitable.
Just change a factor or two, and, presto, the demand for apartments/office buildings/shopping centers will grow at 10% a year for ever. Rents can be increased without limit, and expenses will decline every year.
And all this magic will be displayed with charts, tables and graphs in the most professional manner that can be imagined.
The result - well, you know the result - was the savings and loan debacle.
I have no doubt that one day the AIDS crisis will be ex-
posed as - at least in large part - a contrived fraud.
The sad part is that the woman mentioned in the article will be unrepentent.
She and others of her ilk will admit that mistakes were made but proclaim with righteous justification that the mistakes were made for the best of reasons and that some good was done.
Then, she will progress to the next cause, believing with unblinking certainty whatever foolishness the mainstream media proclaims.
And she will demand that the public till be tapped to satisfy her cause.
Like those suffering from AIDS, she is a victim. Her disease is not of the body but of the mind. She has great empathy for the ills of others but lacks judgement; she lacks the ability to think critically; and she lacks the capacity to use a facility that is now reviled but was once consiedered an attribute: she lacks discrimination.

[E Rocc]

James Hogan, one of the best science fiction authors writing today, has a solid collection of AIDS skepticism articles on his website.

-Eric

[AdamSelene235]

The chemical bases of the various AIDS epidemics

AIDS IN AFRICA

[geedee]

As usual, sir, your posts are superb. My first search each day is for your posts. You rarely fail to live up to my expectations.

[thulldud]

I think it is time to start questioning some of the claims made by the Aids lobby. Their certainties are so fanatical, the powers they claim so far-reaching. Their authority is ultimately derived from computer-generated estimates, which they wield like weapons, overwhelming any resistance with dumbfounding atom bombs of hypothetical human misery. Give them their head, and they will commandeer all resources to fight just one disease. Who knows, they may defeat Aids, but what if we wake up five years hence to discover that the problem has been blown up out of all proportion by unsound estimates, causing upwards of $20 billion to be wasted?

Add this to the similarly-generated hysteria over global warming and all other such pseudoscientific lefty causes, and we can say with Senator Dirksen, "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about some REAL MONEY!"

[singsong]

because they really liked the idea of using AIDS to terrify people into only having sex with their spouses in a marriage, and if you didn't you were gonna die.

It would be nice if this was true. Unfortunately it is nonesense. Both parties promote "safe sex", condoms and "research". That's where the money is. Family faithfulness brings no money to anyone. BTW, "research" is pointless. HIV mutates fast, faster than the flu virus - an effective vacine will not be found. Something to pay for - may be, something that is at lest 50% effective - no.

[ABrit]

INTEGRATED DISEASE SURVEILLANCE
From the World Health Organisation- Africa official website.

A Regional Strategy for Communicable diseases (1999-2003)

Annex 1, Page 22
CASE DEFINITIONS FOR NOTIFYING DISEASE OCCURRENCE
BY COMMUNITY TO HEALTH FACILITY

"AIDS Any person with a large weight loss or diarrhoea for more than a month"

http://www.whoafr.org/ids/articles/engdiseasesurv.pdf

You can see from this definition of AIDS, whos use is mandatory, that anyone in Africa who gets sick from a "traditional" illness, gets lumped in with the AIDS figures.

These numbers are completely invented.

[DonQ]

There is some reason to be skeptical of some of the third world AIDS statistics. The reliable tests for identifying or diagnosing HIV/AIDS cost money - including equipped labs - that is very scarce in these places. So, more often, the "diagnosis" of AIDS is not made on the basis of anything scientific but only on a similarity of symptoms -- frequently weight loss (there was a time in the English speaking parts of Africa when AIDS was simply called "the slimming disease"), even though the same symptom comes with dysentery and a bunch of other tropical ailments endemic to Africa, and pretty much the same applies to other symptoms used to "disagnose" AIDS.

Add to this, that the more prosperous nations are throwing money at AIDS but not at the other African diseases, and there is not merely an easy way to make a mistake but a very very strong motive to diagnose AIDS instead of whatever the ailment really is.