African Women and AIDS {African AIDS due to UN pop con efforts, NOT heterosuxual behavior}

PRI Weekly News Briefing ^ | 29 April 2003 | Steve Mosher

[Polycarp]

29 April 2003
Volume 5/ Number 13

Dear Colleague:

In Africa, nearly 6 out of 10 victims of HIV/AIDS are women. Why does the disease disproportionately strike African women? Because, say the gender feminists at the United Nations, they are powerless to refuse sex with HIV-positive men. We disagree with this ideologically-motivated assessment. We believe that the targeting of women and girls for invasive contraceptive, sterilization and abortion procedures by so-called Sexual and Reproductive Health programs is largely responsible.
 
Steven W. Mosher
President

African Women and AIDS

An examination of HIV/AIDS statistics by region and by gender reveals a curious anomaly. In areas of the world where the primary means of transmission is assumed to be heterosexual sex, such as sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa and the Middle East, and the Caribbean, the majority of HIV-positive adults are women. The United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS
(UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization have recently called attention to this disparity in their AIDS Epidemic Update. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, they report that 58 % of those who have HIV/AIDS are
women.(1) In the younger age groups the disparity is even higher: “[O]verall about twice as many young women as men are infected in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2001, an estimated 6-11 percent of young women aged 15-24 were living with HIV/AIDS, compared to 3-6% of young men.”(2)

These results are surprising because they appear to contradict what we know about human sexual behavior. Cross-culturally, men are more promiscuous than women. They have more sexual partners before marriage and higher rates of marital infidelity. Moreover, some of their numbers patronize prostitutes, who are a prime vector for AIDS transmission. These are all behaviors which expose men to a greater risk of sexually contracting HIV/AIDS.

“Why do young African women appear so prone to HIV infection?” asks UNAIDS and WHO. Their answer (which of course assumes that HIV is sexually
transmitted) is that African women are forced by circumstances to have sex with HIV positive men: “Women and girls are commonly discriminated against in terms of access to education, employment, credit, health care, land and inheritance. . . [R]elationships with men (casual or formalized through
marriage) can serve as vital opportunities for financial and social security, or for satisfying material aspirations. But, in areas where HIV/AIDS is widespread, they [men] are also more likely to have become infected with HIV. The combination of dependence and subordination can make it very difficult for girls and women to demand safer sex (even from their husbands) or to end relationships that carry the threat of infection.”

This explanation—that African women are infected by rapacious men—may be convincing to the radical feminist mind, but it completely begs the question. Why does HIV in Africa disproportionately strike women?

The answer lies in the medical transmission of HIV/AIDS. The public health sector in many African countries has simply collapsed. African clinics are short of almost everything, from vaccines and malaria tablets to rubber gloves and needles. Little, if any, care is available to African men and women ill with malaria and other tropical diseases. Medical equipment, such as syringes, surgical instruments, and manual vacuum aspirators, cannot be properly disinfected before they are reused. The local blood supply is unreliable.

The one exception to the generally dismal state of primary health care in Africa is Western-funded Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) programs targeting women. African medical workers are taught (and paid) to emphasize reproductive health procedures (contraception, sterilization, and abortion), often to the near exclusion of primary health care. Poorly equipped clinics are kept well-supplied with Depo-Provera, IUDs, and condoms. According to Dr. Stephen Karanja, the former Secretary of the Kenyan Medical Association, “Thousands of the Kenyan people will die of malaria whose treatment costs a few cents, in health facilities whose stores are stacked to the roof with millions of dollars worth of pills, IUDs, Norplant, Depo-Provera, most of which are supplied with American
money.”(3)
 
Is it mere coincidence that the same groups that are targeted for invasive procedures are disproportionately afflicted with AIDS? We think not. Women and girls account for such a high percentage of HIV/AIDS victims in Africa because they are infected during procedures designed to disable their reproductive systems and prevent them from conceiving or bearing children. Up to 70% of HIV infections in Africa, according to a recently published study in the peer-reviewed International Journal of STD and AIDS, occur as a result of substandard health care, primarily HIV transmission through reuse of needles.(4)
 
To paraphrase UNAIDS, it is the dependence and subordination of women to clinic personnel—often the only available source of health care for themselves and their families--that makes it very difficult to demand safe medical care, and to end medical relationships that carry the threat of infection.

 
Endnotes

(1) “AIDS Epidemic Update,” Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS)/World Health Organization (UNAIDS/WHO), December 2002, p. 6.

(2) “Ibid., p. 19.

(3) “Dr. Stephen Karanja: Health System Collapsed,” PRI Review (March/April 1997), 7(2): p. 4.

(4) David D. Brewer, Stuart Brody, Ernest Drucker, David Gisselquist, Stephen F. Minkin, John J. Potterat, Richard B. Rothernberg, and Francois Vachon, “Mounting Anomalies in the Epidemiology of HIV in Africa: Cry the Beloved Paradigm,” Int. J. of STD & AIDS 2003; 14:144-147. David Gisselquist, John J. Potterat, Stuart Brody, and Francois Vachon, “Let it be Sexual: how Health Care Transmission of AIDS in Africa was Ignored,” Int. J. of STD & AIDS 2003; 14:148-161. David Gisselquist and John J. Potterat, “Heterosexual Transmission of HIV in Africa: An Empiric Estimate,” Int. J. of STD & AIDS 2003; 14:162-173.

---

Steve Mosher is the president of Population Research Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to debunking the myth that the world is overpopulated.


(c) 2003 Population Research Institute.
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The Population Research Institute is dedicated to ending human rights abuses committed in the name of "family planning," and to ending counter-productive social and economic paradigms premised on the myth of "overpopulation."

[gcruse]

Dry sex is being touted as a major AIDS force in Africa.

[Polycarp]

Of course, we justify the need for our contraceptive imperialism by pointing out the "overpopulation" of the developing countries. The concept of poverty versus overpopulation needs close scrutiny. Poverty can be defined as too many people for the resources available in a geographic region. When we see humans living in poverty, we feel a certain solidarity with them. Our consciences tell us of our duty to help them out of their misery with food, shelter, infrastructure, and the means to develop their economy.

Remember that verbal engineering always precedes social engineering. By calling poverty by a new name, "overpopulation," we remove the burden for their suffering from our conscience. No longer do we feel the need to feed them. We now can say, "It's your fault. If you'd just stop making babies, you wouldn't be living in poverty. Your suffering is your own creation." So instead of corn meal, we ship them condoms. Instead of antibiotics, we send them IUDs. Instead of the blessing infrastructure would bring, we send the curse of infertility.

[Polycarp]

Yes, I know. It causes a breakdown in the normal barriers to STDs in general, and AIDS in particular.

Not to be forgotten is the symbiotic effect of STDs in making sex partners prone to HIV transmission.

STDs multiply manyfold the likelihood of contracting HIV from ANY type of sexual behavior because of the multiple lesions/breaks in skin and mucous membrane barriers. Dry sex has a similar effect due to the caustic nature of many of the things used to achieve "dry sex."

[A. Pole]

Women and girls account for such a high percentage of HIV/AIDS victims in Africa because they are infected during procedures designed to disable their reproductive systems and prevent them from conceiving or bearing children.

Or is it matter of false reporting? (To get funding)

[Polycarp]

see post 18

[ninenot]

Remember Gomer's character talking to Andy???

"Surpraaahs, Surpraaahhhs, Sur PRAAAAAHhhhhsss"

The UN is incapable of running a clean clinic. And just today, they elected Cuba to the Human Rights High Commission.

[ninenot]

You probably want to read post #13 (and be sure to read the author's name/title) before you go all gaga about someone actually suggesting that the UN could possibly be wrong.

The UN has also been wrong about the population explosion, famines, and the war in Rwanda, which the UN ignored.

Why do you think that the UN is right about AIDS in Africa?

[ninenot]

You are being far too kind.

The fact of the matter is that the Fords, Rockefellers, and Johnsons simply don't give a rip about black and Asian people. They are racist, as was the mother of all this crap who was also the founderette of Planned Parenthood.

You don't have to draw inferences from delicately-phrased and parsed spin, either. During hearings over the efficacy of DDT and the global ban, a Congressman asked a FordFoundation apparatchik whether the ban would not have a detrimental effect on the people of SE Asia (the malaria would return..) and in reply, the apparatchik said "So what? They're just little brown people."

If the blacks in this country EVER knew how racist and elitist these "liberal" outfits really are, there would be a GREAT DEAL of burning buildings on Foundation Row in NYC.

[ninenot]

Or is it matter of false reporting? (To get funding)

NOT an either/or proposition. BOTH is the answer.

[mhking]

Black conservative ping

If you want on (or off) of my black conservative ping list, please let me know via FREEPmail. (And no, you don't have to be black to be on the list!)

Extra warning: this is a high-volume ping list.

[Lorianne]

Absolutely, and most of the measures cited do not involve needles or invasive procedures, such as the Pill, condoms, Norplant.

There is a correlation between vaccinations and other injections and HIV/AIDS transmission because of unsterilized needles used.

[Polycarp]

most of the measures cited do not involve needles or invasive procedures, such as the Pill, condoms, Norplant.

Norplant is not an invasive surgical procedure also involving needles (local anesthetic)?

Your statement is pathetically in error.

Depo provera (an injection) and Norplant (a surgical implantation) are methods of choice in Third World Clinics.

Both involve needles and/or invasive procedures.

--Dr. Kopp

[Susannah]

Based on the UN's performance to date, it's probably a good place to meet to get the gist of the problem...then, what ever the UN concludes as the appropriate action...Do the opposite.

I've been to the UN website. They are in violation of their own charter. Will someone tell them?

[Servant of the Nine]

And it is also irrefutable that for every dollar spent on buying sterile needles, multiple dollars are spent on contraceptive/abortifacient drugs, devices, and paraphernalia that would be far better spent on basic health care measures.

NO.

If population is to remain at suportable levels, then the birth rates and death rates must remain in balance. If anything, we should be spending more on birth control and less on fighting disease in most parts of the world, including the United States.

So9

[ninenot]

My recommendation, yet to be acted on by Congress, the President, or the Department of State, is that we cut our contribution by 75%, to get the UN's attention.

We can proceed from there.

[lepton]

This would parallel the tendency for food-aid programs to result in the total denuding of the landscape local to the distribution points, and a further societal breakdown. A little help, developing a dependency, which in turn causes great damage in side-effects.

[lepton]

By calling poverty by a new name, "overpopulation," we remove the burden for their suffering from our conscience. No longer do we feel the need to feed them. We now can say, "It's your fault. If you'd just stop making babies, you wouldn't be living in poverty. Your suffering is your own creation."

Not to mention no longer needing to admit that governmental socialism causes devastation to the poor. It instead now just provides further justification for authoritarinaism.

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

Good post!

[lepton]

If anything, we should be spending more on birth control and less on fighting disease in most parts of the world, including the United States.

I suspect increased military spending would be more helpful.

And as for your general premise, if you believe anything from the U.N., their latest figures point to a world-wide population collapse.

[ninenot]

Damn!!!

You've figured out what "supportable levels" are?

Get thee to the UN. They have a job for you!!