Is the African AIDS pandemic a bluff?

afrol News - A growing number of researchers question the "official" inflated numbers of HIV/AIDS prevalence in African countries such as Botswana, South Africa and Lesotho. Poor testing, a special diagnosis of AIDS in Africa and erroneous computer-generated estimates by the UN had led to "misleading" numbers, they hold. The history of AIDS in Uganda serves as proof.

The Austrian specialist of reproductive medicine, Christian Fiala, leads the growing group of researchers questioning the extent of the AIDS disaster in Africa. He holds that - while there indeed is a worrying prevalence of HIV on the continent - the numbers presented by the UN agency UNAIDS and national health authorities are highly inflated.

Mr Fiala, in a recent reader's letter to the prestigious 'British Medical Journals', calls for "sense, not hysteria" regarding the AIDS epidemic in Africa. The claimed high numbers of victims to the epidemic were only "based on estimates and certain assumptions," he holds. Fellow researchers hold that the Austrian researcher and the British journal are "courageous" just for publishing the critique.

Already in 1994, a study published in the 'Journal of Infectious Diseases' had concluded that the HIV tests used were "possibly not sufficient for the diagnosis of HIV infection in Central Africa." This unreliability of HIV tests, according to Mr Fiala, had later been "confirmed" in several newer medical research studies.

- In Africa in particular, writes Mr Fiala, "people have a high number of antibodies against infectious diseases or against foreign proteins after receiving blood or dirty injections. Some of these antibodies may lead to a false positive HIV test."

But among the millions of Africans given the diagnosis AIDS, only very few have actually been tested by these "unreliable tests". AIDS diagnosis on the continent with the highest prevalence is done by other standards than elsewhere, something that the World Health Organisation (WHO) had decided on in 1985, given the high costs of testing.

According to the WHO's Africa definition, "AIDS is diagnosed on the basis of non-specific clinical symptoms and without an HIV test," Mr Fiala says. Even today, "people with for example continuous diarrhoea, weight loss and itching are declared to be suffering from AIDS. But also the typical symptoms for tuberculosis - fever, weight loss and coughing - are officially considered to be AIDS, even without an HIV test," holds the Austrian specialist.

- In order to get a total estimate of AIDS cases, WHO at it's headquarters in Geneva adds the registered AIDS sufferers to a high number of unreported cases, which WHO presumes to have occurred, explains Mr Fiala. "Thus in November 1997, the WHO announced that since its previous report in July 1996, there had been a further 4.5 million AIDS cases in Africa. In this period, however, only 120,000 AIDS sufferers were actually registered."

Further proof for what the critics of the 'AIDS pandemic' call "misleading" prevalence numbers was given by the case of Uganda. Ten years ago, Uganda was internationally recognised as the country worst struck by the disease, with local prevalence rates reaching 30 percent. Now, the Kampala government celebrates itself as an example of how to fight AIDS, claiming that its energetic campaigns had turned the tide.

Mr Fiala considers the Ugandan success story a bluff, assuming that AIDS prevalence never could have been as high as originally claimed. Poor testing methods and failed statistics had inflated the numbers.

He finds proof in Uganda's newest population census and household surveys. During the last decade, the assumed high AIDS prevalence of the early 1990s should have led to increased mortality in Uganda. This is not the case. The country's mortality rate has in fact declined, especially due to lower infant and childhood mortality rates. Uganda's population now grows at an average annual rate of 3.4 percent - the highest ever.

Further, he contradicts Ugandan government claims that the numerous campaigns against AIDS could have led to a change in sexual behaviour and thus to a fall in HIV infections. The national household survey of 2002 shows that Ugandan girls have the same sexual behaviour as they had ten and thirty years ago. Further, protection against AIDS has not improved - only 2 percent of Ugandan women regularly use a condom.

The South African writer Rian Malan in a recent article in the UK-based 'Spectator' makes similar conclusions regarding the AIDS pandemic in Southern Africa. In his article "Africa Isn't Dying of AIDS," Mr Malan reacts to UNAIDS claims that almost 30 million Africans now have HIV/AIDS.

- But, says Mr Malan, "the figures are computer-generated estimates and they appear grotesquely exaggerated when set against population statistics." In Botswana, the country with the world's highest AIDS prevalence, several reports had suggested that population had dropped from 1.4 million in 1993 to under a million currently, due to the AIDS pandemic.

Not true, says Mr Malan. "Botswana has just concluded a census that shows population growing at about 2.7 percent a year, in spite of what is usually described as the worst AIDS problem on the planet. Total population has risen to 1.7 million in just a decade. If anything, Botswana is experiencing a minor population explosion," the South African writer concludes.

He continues slaughtering UN and national statistics on South African AIDS deaths. UNAIDS is using a computer simulator called Epimodel to estimate AIDS related deaths, which had produced estimations of 250,000 AIDS deaths in South Africa in 1999 alone.

South Africa however, unlike all other African countries, has reliable mortality reporting. Pretoria data showed that total deaths - of all kind of causes - in South Africa had been 375,000 in 1999 - "far too few to accommodate the UN's claims on behalf of the HIV virus," Mr Malan notes.

A South African study based on local mortality data thus reduced the number of estimated lethal victims of AIDS to 143,000 - still representing 40 percent of all deaths in 1999. Later studies resulted in two more downwards regulations of the assumed AIDS deaths in South Africa in 1999. Current estimates are of an AIDS death toll somewhere around 65,000 for that year - "a far cry indeed from the 250,000 initially put forth by UNAIDS," Mr Malan comments.

Local South African studies, where population segments have been HIV tested, according to Mr Malan show a far lower prevalence than official estimates. At a university in KwaZulu-Natal, HIV prevalence was only one ninth of the expected number and bank employees had one forth of the expected HIV prevalence. Mr Malan believes that the picture is equal in other African countries, where UNAIDS estimations are used.

Paul Bennell, a health policy analyst at Sussex University's Institute for Development Studies (UK), agrees. After the BBC in November 2002 had reported that "one in seven" of Malawian teachers would die of AIDS in that year alone, Mr Bennell looked at the available mortality evidence from Malawi.

His 2003 study 'Teacher mortality at primary and secondary schools in Malawi 1997-2002' found actual teacher mortality to be "much lower than expected". In Malawi, for instance, the all-causes death rate among schoolteachers was under 3 percent, not over 14 percent as the UN's computer-generated estimates had suggested.

Further, teachers' mortality in Malawi appeared to "have peaked in 1999 and 2000," Mr Bennell found. "The epidemic is not growing in most countries," insists the British scientist. "HIV prevalence is not increasing as is usually stated or implied," he concludes.

Mr Bennell regrets that "there is virtually no population-based survey data in most of the high-prevalence countries, including Botswana, Ethiopia, Malawi, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland."

In Lesotho, for example, UNAIDS' computer-generated estimates have shown dramatic increases in HIV prevalence without testing of the population. While UNAIDS estimates put HIV prevalence at 8.4 percent in Lesotho in 1997, this boomed to 23.6 percent in 1999 and 32 percent in 2001. The numbers have never been tested in real life, however.

For the growing number of sceptical scientists, the allegedly "misleading" UNAIDS numbers come at a high price for Africans. Mr Fiala regrets the "fatal consequences" of these numbers. "Thus for example, UNAIDS 1999 recommended Finance Ministers in the African countries cut their budgets for social security, education, health, infrastructure and rural development in order to have more funds available for the fight against AIDS," he notes.

Also Mr Malan fears the consequences of this "error". It gives the false impression "AIDS is the only problem in Africa, and the only solution is to continue the agitprop until free access to AIDS drugs is defined as a 'basic human right' for everyone."

Meanwhile, he holds, a far greater number of Africans are dying from diseases that are cured at a much lower cost, such as malaria and tuberculosis (TB) and research on these diseases is suffering. "Two million get TB, but last time I checked, spending on AIDS research exceeded spending on TB by a crushing factor of 90 to one," he notes. He now urges to "start questioning some of the claims made by the AIDS lobby."

Here's a laugher! AIDs is the biggest most expensive scam ever invented by the homosexuals. What a joke.

1. Since HIV is “the sole cause of AIDS”, it must be abundant in AIDS patients based on “exactly the same criteria as for other viral diseases.”

But, only antibodies against HIV are found in most patients (1–7)**. Therefore, “HIV infection is identified in blood by detecting antibodies, gene sequences, or viral isolation.” But, HIV can only be “isolated” from rare, latently infected lymphocytes that have been cultured for weeks in vitro – away from the antibodies of the human host (8). Thus HIV behaves like a latent passenger virus.

2. Since HIV is “the sole cause of AIDS”, there is no AIDS in HIV-free people.

But, the AIDS literature has described at least 4621 HIVfree AIDS cases according to one survey – irrespective of, or in agreement with allowances made by the CDC for HIV-free AIDS cases (55).

3. The retrovirus HIV causes immunodeficiency by killing T-cells (1–3).

But, retroviruses do not kill cells because they depend on viable cells for the replication of their RNA from viral DNA integrated into cellular DNA (4, 25). Thus, T-cells infected in vitro thrive, and those patented to mass-produce HIV for the detection of HIV antibodies and diag nosis of AIDS are immortal (9–15)!

4. Following “exactly the same criteria as for other viral diseases”, HIV causes AIDS by killing more T-cells than the body can replace. Thus T-cells or “CD4 lymphocytes . . . become depleted in people with AIDS”.

But, even in patients dying from AIDS less than 1 in 500 of the T-cells “that become depleted” are ever infected by HIV (16–20, 54). This rate of infection is the hallmark of a latent passenger virus (21).

5. With an RNA of 9 kilobases, just like polio virus, HIV should be able to cause one specific disease, or no disease if it is a passenger (22).

But, HIV is said to be “the sole cause of AIDS”, or of 26 different immunodeficiency and non-immunodeficiency diseases, all of which also occur without HIV. Thus there is not one HIV-specific disease, which is the definition of a passenger virus!

6. All viruses are most pathogenic prior to anti-viral immunity. Therefore, preemptive immunization with Jennerian vaccines is used to protect against all viral diseases since 1798.

But, AIDS is observed – by definition – only after anti- HIV immunity is established, a positive HIV/AIDS test (23). Thus HIV cannot cause AIDS by “the same criteria” as conventional viruses.

7. HIV needs “5–10 years” from establishing antiviral immunity to cause AIDS.

But, HIV replicates in 1 day, generating over 100 new HIVs per cell (24, 25). Accordingly, HIV is immunogenic, i.e. biochemically most active, within weeks after infection (26, 27). Thus, based on conventional criteria “for other viral disea ses”, HIV should also cause AIDS within weeks – if it could.

8. “Most people with HIV infection show signs of AIDS within 5–10 years” – the justification for prophylaxis of AIDS with the DNA chain terminator AZT (§ 4).

But, of “34×3 million . . . with HIV worldwide” only 1×4% [= 471,457 (obtained by substracting the WHO’s cumulative total of 1999 from that of 2000)] developed AIDS in 2000, and similarly low percentages prevailed in all previous years (28). Likewise, in 1985, only 1×2% of the 1 million US citizens with HIV developed AIDS (29, 30). Since an annual incidence of 1×2–1×4% of all 26 AIDS defining diseases combined is no more than the normal mortality in the US and Europe (life ex pectancy of 75 years), HIV must be a passenger virus.

9. A vaccine against HIV should (“is hoped” to) prevent AIDS – the reason why AIDS researchers try to develop an AIDS vaccine since 1984 (31).

But, despite enormous efforts there is no such vaccine to this day (31). Moreover, since AIDS occurs by definition only in the presence of natural antibodies against HIV (§ 3), and since natural antibodies are so effective that no HIV is detectable in AIDS patients (see No. 1), even the hopes for a vaccine are irrational.

10. HIV, like other viruses, survives by transmission from host to host, which is said to be mediated “through sexual contact”.

But, only 1 in 1000 unprotected sexual contacts transmits HIV (32–34), and only 1 of 275 US citizens is HIV-infected (29, 30), (figure 1b). Therefore, an average un-infected US citizen needs 275,000 random “sexual contacts” to get infected and spread HIV – an unlikely basis for an epidemic!

11. “AIDS spreads by infection” of HIV. But, contrary to the spread of AIDS, there is no “spread” of HIV in the US. In the US HIV infections have remained constant at 1 million from 1985 (29) until now (30), (see also The Durban Declaration and figure 1b). By contrast, AIDS has increased from 1981 until 1992 and has declined ever since (figure 1a).

12. Many of the 3 million people who annually receive blood transfusions in the US for life-threatening diseases (51), should have developed AIDS from HIV-infected blood donors prior to the elimination of HIV from the blood supply in 1985.

But there was no increase in AIDS-defining diseases in HIV-positive transfusion recipients in the AIDS era (52), and no AIDS-defining Kaposi’s sarcoma has ever been observed in millions of transfusion recipients (53).

13. Doctors are at high risk to contract AIDS from patients, HIV researchers from virus preparations, wives of HIV-positive hemophiliacs from husbands, and prostitutes from clients – particularly since there is no HIV vaccine.

But, in the peer-reviewed literature there is not one doctor or nurse who has ever contracted AIDS (not just HIV) from the over 816,000 AIDS patients recorded in the US in 22 years (30). Not one of over ten thousand HIV researchers has contracted AIDS. Wives of hemophiliacs do not get AIDS (35). And there is no AIDS-epidemic in prostitutes (36–38). Thus AIDS is not contagious (39, 40).

14. Viral AIDS – like all viral/microbial epidemics in the past (41–43) – should spread randomly in a population.

But, in the US and Europe AIDS is restricted since 1981 to two main risk groups, intravenous drug users and male homosexual drug users (§ 1 and 4).

15. A viral AIDS epidemic should form a classical, bell-shaped chronological curve (41–43), rising exponentially via virus spread and declining exponentially via natural immunity, within months (see figure 3a).

But, AIDS has been increasing slowly since 1981 for 12 years and is now declining since 1993 (figure 1a), just like a lifestyle epidemic, as for example lung cancer from smoking (figure 3b).

16. AIDS should be a pediatric epidemic now, because HIV is transmitted “from mother to infant” at rates of 25–50% (44– 49), and because “34×3 million people worldwide” were already infected in 2000. To reduce the high maternal transmission rate HIV-antibody-positive pregnant mothers are treated with AZT for up to 6 months prior to birth (§ 4).

But, less than 1% of AIDS in the US and Europe is pediatric (30, 50). Thus HIV must be a passenger virus in newborns.

17. “HIV recognizes no social, political or geographic borders” – just like all other viruses.

But, the presumably HIV-caused AIDS epidemics of Africa and of the US and Europe differ both clinically and epidemiologically (§ 1, table 2). The US/European epidemic is highly nonrandom, 80% male and restricted to abnormal risk groups, whereas the African epidemic is random.

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