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To: FormerLib

So what, we should just ignore hiv because unprotected hetersexual intercourse, though dangerous, is not as dangerous as unprotected anal sex? I doubt very seriously the jama research inflated anything. Oh, still waiting for you to offer to tell some of my women friends that they don't really have hiv.


37 posted on 06/03/2005 11:44:27 AM PDT by Tulane
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To: Tulane
OK, it’s uphill for now. I was reminded why when I was recently forwarded a speech of a key international organization figure on African HIV-AIDS, passed around approvingly by a colleague of similar rank. Well, it almost read like a feminist parody. It was wrong-headed in a pity-without-thinking way, invoking HIV-AIDS as a scare/shame tool against sexual abuse of women in Africa, along with stray ramblings irrelevantly celebrating affirmative action. Fighting sexual abuse of women, while a noble cause, is only somewhat relevant to a serious fight against HIV-AIDS in Africa. Another Left-bred bias was present – a lack of realistic appreciation that African data can be tainted by widespread official corruption, as well as endemic poverty, ignorance, and superstition.

To reassure readers – even if we are all wrong here (I doubt it) and "heterosexual" transmission is the major route in Africa -- inspiring better data and scientific rigor is worth the effort. Moving injection safety to the forefront is still beneficial for fighting HIV, hepatitis, and many other infections, including the recent Marburg virus outbreak. Sexual hygiene education will continue no matter what; even skeptics of the "heterosexual" African spread assumption still feel that sexual transmission of a certain type is a key route (and some significant penile-vaginal transmission may be yet the case as well), along with the sense that accurate sex education and hygiene benefits general health care.


44 posted on 06/03/2005 11:49:17 AM PDT by FormerLib (Kosova: "land stolen from Serbs and given to terrorist killers in a futile attempt to appease them.")
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