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]

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)

[RAT Patrol]

Wow, this is quite a charge:

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)

If it's true, don't expect to hear about it on broadcast news or any newspaper near you.

[Servant of the Nine]

TIN FOIL HAT TIME

So9

[nickcarraway]

BUMP. Dr. Karanja is a great guy and very sharp.

[RonF]

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.

Actually, from what I can see, these results are supported by what we know about human sexual behavior, and about AIDS. If an HIV-infected man are able to impose themselves on multiple women, and if (as is known), male to female transmissions of HIV is much more efficient than female to male transmission of HIV, then you'd expect to see many more women than men have HIV infection in such a population. And that's what we see.

While non-sexual transmission of AIDS in Africa is very likely a serious problem, blaming it, and blaming the specific procedures of contraception as spreading them, is conjecture at best.

[LizardQueen]

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.

What the author conveniently forgets is that in any given encounter with an infected partner the women will always be at higher risk of infection than the man simply due to being the receptive partner.

HIV is most easily transmitted through minute breaks in the skin, exposing the blood supply to the virus. This is more likely to occur in womens vaginal mucosa than on the mans genitalia during sex.

And if what I've heard is true, that there is a preference in Africa for "dry" sex, this would make it even more likely to occur due to damage to the women's tissues.

So I wouldn't be surprised at all to see more women infected than men given the same amount of exposure.

LQ

[Mack the knife]

Wow, this is quite a charge:

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)

On the other hand, almost all African women are mutilated by "female circumcision", making vaginal intercourse painful. So ... they prefer anal intercourse.

I remember seeing a documentary some time ago that asserted that the chances of an infected male transmitting HIV to the recipient of anal intercourse (male or female) is about 1 in 3, while the chances of an uninfected male receiving it from an infected recipient of anal intercourse is like 1 in 30, and more like 1 in 300 if the male is circumcized. So this would be at least a contributory factor.

[Odyssey-x]

I have an episode of the TV Show "United Nations World Chronicle" in which the discuss population control. At one point in the show the host jokes with the U.N representative about their promotion of pornography in Brazil in order to lower the birth rate and the U.N representative acknowledges that they have been involved in this. Population control is a really scary subcurrent of modern international relations.

[RonF]

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)

The statement in bold print, which is peer reviewed, does not necessarily follow from the statement that precedes it, which is conjecture and is not peer-reviewed. The odds that a woman has been HIV infected by an invasive contraceptive procedure has to be weighed against how many invasive non-contraceptive procedures women are subjected to (another potential source of AIDS) and how many sexual episodes they are subjected to unwillingly or otherwise by HIV-infected men (remembering that an HIV-infected man is more likely to give a non-infected woman AIDS than an HIV-infected woman is to give a non-infected man).

[RAT Patrol]

Interesting. Ah, but truth will never trump politics, especially when large sums of money are involved.

[RonF]

The bit about preference for "dry sex" is apparently an attempt by prostitutes to deceive their customers into thinking that they are reluctant virgins rather than seasoned pros. This is supposed to be cultural, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's also due to the fact that a virgin is much less likely to have AIDS, and also because there is apparently a misapprehension in Africa that sex with a virgin cures AIDS.

[Polycarp]

Press Release
20 February 2003

Unsafe healthcare "drives spread of African HIV"

Since the 1980s most experts have assumed that heterosexual sex transmitted 90% of HIV in Africa. In the March International Journal of STD and AIDS, an international team of HIV specialists presents groundbreaking evidence to challenge this consensus, with "profound implications" for public health in Africa.

In a series of articles, Dr David Gisselquist, Mr John Potterat and colleagues argue that the spread of HIV infections in Africa is closely linked to medical care. In their unique study of existing data from across the continent they estimate that only about a third of HIV infections are sexually transmitted. Their evidence suggests that "health care exposures caused more HIV than sexual transmission", with contaminated medical injections being the biggest risk.

Sexual behaviour

• HIV and STDs: According to the authors' data, African HIV did not follow the pattern of sexually transmitted disease (STD). In Zimbabwe in the 1990s HIV increased by 12% a year, while overall STDs declined by 25% and condom use actually increased among high-risk groups.
  
  
• Infection rate: HIV spread very fast in many countries in Africa. For the increase to have been all via heterosexual sex, the study claims, it would have to be as easy to get HIV from sex as from a blood transfusion. In fact, HIV is much more difficult than most STDs to transmit via penile-vaginal sex.
  
  
• Risky sex? Several general behaviour surveys suggest that sexual activity in Africa is not much different from that in North America and Europe. In fact, places with the highest level of risky sexual behaviour, such as Yaounde in Cameroon, have low and stable rates of HIV infection. "Information…from the general population shows most HIV in sexually less active adults" .

Did medical care spread HIV?

• Children and injections: Many studies report young children infected with HIV with mothers who are not infected. One study in Kinshasa kept track of the injections given to infants under two. In one study, nearly 40% of HIV+ infants had mothers who tested negative. These children averaged 44 injections in their lifetimes compared with only 23 for uninfected children.
  
  
• Good access to medical care: Countries like Zimbabwe, with the best access to medical care, have the highest rates of HIV transmission. "High rates [of HIV] in South Africa have paralleled aggressive efforts to deliver health care to rural populations".
  
  
• Riskier to be rich: Most STDs are associated with being poor and uneducated. HIV in Africa is associated with urban living, having a good education, and having a higher income. In one hospital in 1984, the rate of HIV in the senior administrators was 9.2%, compared with the average employee rate of 6.4%.

"People often see what they wish to see"
The authors suggest several reasons why evidence has been ignored until now, including the West's preconceptions about African sexuality, the fear that people might lose trust in healthcare, and simple disbelief that medical practices could be so unsafe.

They conclude: "a growing body of evidence points to unsafe injections and other medical exposures to contaminated blood" as an explanation for the majority of the spread of the epidemic. "This finding has major ramifications for current and future HIV control programmes in Africa" .

ends - 20 February 2003

Read the articles (in PDF format):
Mounting anomalies in the epidemiology of HIV in Africa: cry the beloved paradigm
Let it be sexual: how health care transmission of AIDS in Africa was ignored
Heterosexual transmission of HIV in Africa: an empiric estimate

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Tel: +44 (0) 20 7290 2904
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[CanadianBacon]

If you believe this garbage, you would believe Baghdad Bob when he said the Iraqis were winning, and you would believe that man never set foot on the moon.

I have first hand knowledge of male dominant and promiscuous African customs and behavior that are so totally inconsistent with this thesis. Tribal chieftains do what they want to whomever they want.

I worry about the future of Africa because of AIDS and I worry that steps to help deal with the problem get hampered by foolish theories like this.

[Qwerty]

I was going to say what you did. Thanks for saving me the trouble. ;-)

[Coleus]

`

[Salvation]

**to the near exclusion of primary health care.**

It would seem someone has their thinking backwards here.

[Polycarp]

If you believe this garbage...

With all undue respect, MrBacon, I've actually done medical missionary work in Third World countries, and your "first hand knowledge" must be compared with the facts gathered by those who have been there and gathered the facts themselves.

Africa suffers from 1)female genital mutilation, as well as 2) a very high rate of culturally accepted prostitution and all the other things mentioned by posters in this thread, including 3)preference for "dry sex" (African men, in fact prefer it, because they think its more stimulating. Women actually use things like laundry detergent to remain "dry" for their mates), 4)highly promiscuous heterosexual sex, 5)preference for anal sex due to female genital mutilation.

This all lead, in the years before AIDS, to very high levels of STDs in general.

Thus the men who paid for prostitutes, their prostitutes themselves, their wives, the multiple sex partners, etc (all well documented, culturally accepted behaviors in much of Africa) all went to the local HEALTH CLINIC for a shot in the behind of cheap anti--biotics, which for many years (before antibiotic resisent strains of STDs emerged) cleared up the rampant STDs.

It is also well know that these clinics are chronically underfunded, and that they have reused needles for injections routinely for decades now.

It is also well know that these same clinics, which are chronically underfunded for routine health concerns, are overflowing with population control money, drugs, and devices.

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)

I can tell you from my own experience in medical missionary work in Haiti that this is absolutely and irrefutably true!

So the important point of the article is that, while millions are spent supplying these countries with contraceptive/abortifacient drugs, devices, and paraphernalia, very little is actually spent on health care.

So in effect, the superabundance of contraceptives/abortifacients (along with the well known fact that acceptance of contraceptives/abortifacients increases dangerous sexual behavior), combined with the scarcity of clean needles/sterilization equipment/procedures/medicines/antibiotics, has played a decisive role in causing this AIDS epidemic to explode among women.

There is certainly validity to the authors's point,

"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."

...but the authors over reach in trying to infer that the majority of cases are due to this fact.

However, it is simply irrefutable that

"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)"

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.

This fact alone is the most important issue: Do we in the west engage in Contraceptive Imperialism as solution to Third World Poverty?

[gcruse]

It gets worse. Google up on the phrase "dry sex".

[Polycarp]

Uh, no thanks. It was bad enough having to "Google up" on "in utero fetal masturbation" to refute a pro-homo a$$hole earlier today...