AIDS Now Compels Africa To Challenge Widows' "Cleansing"

MCHINJI, Malawi - In the hours after James Mbewe was laid to rest three years ago, in an unmarked grave not far from here, his 23-year-old wife, Fanny, neither mourned him nor accepted visits from sympathizers. Instead, she hid in his sister's hut, hoping that the rest of her in-laws would not find her.

But they hunted her down, she said, and insisted that if she refused to exorcise her dead husband's spirit, she would be blamed every time a villager died. So she put her two small children to bed and then forced herself to have sex with James's cousin.

"I cried, remembering my husband," she said. "When he was finished, I went outside and washed myself because I was very afraid. I was so worried I would contract AIDS and die and leave my children to suffer."

Here and in a number of nearby nations including Zambia and Kenya, a husband's funeral has long concluded with a final ritual: sex between the widow and one of her husband's relatives, to break the bond with his spirit and, it is said, save her and the rest of the village from insanity or disease. Widows have long tolerated it, and traditional leaders have endorsed it, as an unchallenged tradition of rural African life.

Now AIDS is changing that. Political and tribal leaders are starting to speak out publicly against so-called sexual cleansing, condemning it as one reason H.I.V. has spread to 25 million sub-Saharan Africans, killing 2.3 million last year alone. They are being prodded by leaders of the region's fledging women's rights movement, who contend that lack of control over their sex lives is a major reason 6 in 10 of those infected in sub-Saharan Africa are women.

But change is coming slowly, village by village, hut by hut. In a region where belief in witchcraft is widespread and many women are taught from childhood not to challenge tribal leaders or the prerogatives of men, the fear of flouting tradition often outweighs even the fear of AIDS.

"It is very difficult to end something that was done for so long," said Monica Nsofu, a nurse and AIDS organizer in the Monze district in southern Zambia, about 200 miles south of the capital, Lusaka. "We learned this when we were born. People ask, Why should we change?"

In Zambia, where one out of five adults is now infected with the virus, the National AIDS Council reported in 2000 that this practice was very common. Since then, President Levy Mwanawasa has declared that forcing new widows into sex or marriage with their husband's relatives should be discouraged, and the nation's tribal chiefs have decided not to enforce either tradition, their spokesman said.

Still, a recent survey by Women and Law in Southern Africa found that in at least one-third of the country's provinces, sexual "cleansing" of widows persists, said Joyce MacMillan, who heads the organization's Zambian chapter. In some areas, the practice extends to men.

Even some Zambian volunteers who work to curb the spread of AIDS are reluctant to disavow the tradition. Paulina Bubala, a leader of a group of H.I.V.-positive residents near Monze, counsels schoolchildren on the dangers of AIDS. But in an interview, she said she was ambivalent about whether new widows should purify themselves by having sex with male relatives.

Her husband died of what appeared to be AIDS-related symptoms in 1996. Soon after the funeral, both Ms. Bubala and her husband's second wife covered themselves in mud for three days. Then they each bathed, stripped naked with their dead husband's nephew and rubbed their bodies against his.

Weeks later, she said, the village headman told them this cleansing ritual would not suffice. Even the stools they sat on would be considered unclean, he warned, unless they had sex with the nephew.

"We felt humiliated," Ms. Bubala said, "but there was nothing we could do to resist, because we wanted to be clean in the land of the headman."

The nephew died last year. Ms. Bubala said the cause was hunger, not AIDS. Her husband's second wife now suffers symptoms of AIDS and rarely leaves her hut. Ms. Bubala herself discovered she was infected in 2000.

But even the risk of disease does not dent Ms. Bubala's belief in the need for the ritual's protective powers. "There is no way we are going to stop this practice," she said, "because we have seen a lot of men and women who have gone mad" after spouses died.

Ms. Nsofu, the nurse and AIDS organizer, argues that it is less important to convince women like Ms. Bubala than the headmen and tribal leaders who are the custodians of tradition and gatekeepers to change.

"We are telling them, 'If you continue this practice, you won't have any people left in your village,' " she said. She cites people, like herself, who have refused to be cleansed and yet seem perfectly sane. Sixteen years after her husband died, she argues, "I am still me." Ms. Nsofu said she suggested to tribal leaders that sexual cleansing most likely sprang not from fears about the vengeance of spirits, but from the lust of men who coveted their relatives' wives. She proposes substituting other rituals to protect against dead spirits, like chanting and jumping back and forth over the grave or over a cow.

Like their counterparts in Zambia, Malawi's health authorities have spoken out against forcing widows into sex or marriage. But in the village of Ndanga, about 90 minutes from the nation's largest city, Blantyre, many remain unconvinced.

Evance Joseph Fundi, Ndanga's 40-year-old headman, is courteous, quiet-spoken and a firm believer in upholding the tradition. While some widows sleep with male relatives, he said, others ask him to summon one of the several appointed village cleansers. In the native language of Chewa, those men are known as fisis or hyenas because they are supposed to operate in stealth and at night.

Mr. Fundi said one of them died recently, probably of AIDS. Still, he said with a charming smile, "We can not abandon this because it has been for generations."

Since 1953, Amos Machika Schisoni has served as the principal village cleanser. He is uncertain of his age and it is not easily guessed at. His hair is grizzled but his arms are sinewy and his legs muscled. His hut of mud bricks, set about 50 yards from a graveyard, is even more isolated than most in a village of far-flung huts separated by towering weeds and linked by dirt paths.

He and the headman like to joke about the sexual demands placed upon a cleanser like Mr. Schisoni, who already has three wives. He said tradition dictates that he sleep with the widow, then with each of his own wives, and then again with the widow, all in one night. Mr. Schisoni said that the previous headman chose him for his sexual prowess after he had impregnated three wives in quick succession.

Now, Mr. Schisoni, said he continues his role out of duty more than pleasure. Uncleansed widows suffer swollen limbs and are not free to remarry, he said. "If we don't do it, the widow will develop the swelling syndrome, get diarrhea and die and her children will get sick and die," he said, sitting under an awning of drying tobacco leaves. "The women who do this do not die."

His wives support his work, he said, because they like the income: a chicken for each cleansing session. He insisted that he cannot wear a condom because "this will provoke some other unknown spirit." He is equally adamant in refusing an H.I.V. test. "I have never done it and I don't intend to do it," he said.

To protect himself, he said, he avoids widows who are clearly quite sick . Told that even widows who look perfectly healthy can transmit the virus, Mr. Schisoni shook his head. "I don't believe this," he said. At the traditional family council after James Mbewe was killed in a truck accident in August 2002, Fanny Mbewe's mother and brothers objected to a cleanser, saying the risk of AIDS was too great. But Ms. Mbewe's in-laws insisted, she said. If a villager so much as dreamed of her husband, they told her, the family would be blamed for allowing his spirit to haunt their community on the Malawi-Zambia border.

Her husband's cousin, to whom she refers only as Loimbani, showed up at her hut at 9 o'clock at night after the burial.

"I was hiding my private parts," she said in an interview in the office of Women's Voice, a Malawian human rights group. "You want to have a liking for a man to have sex, not to have someone force you. But I had no choice, knowing the whole village was against me."

Loimbani, she said, was blasé. "He said: 'Why are you running away? You know this is our culture. If I want, I could even make you my second wife."

He did not. He left her only with the fear that she will die of the virus and that her children, now 8 and 10, will become orphans. She said she is too fearful to take an H.I.V. test.

"Abstinence and sexual fidelity have played virtually no role"

washingtonpost.com
Uganda's AIDS Decline Attributed to Deaths

By David Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, February 24, 2005; Page A02
BOSTON, Feb. 23 -- Abstinence and sexual fidelity have played virtually no role in the much-heralded decline of AIDS rates in the most closely
studied region of Uganda, two researchers told a gathering of AIDS scientists here.

It is the deaths of previously infected people, not dramatic change in human behavior, that is the main engine behind the ebbing of the overall rate,
or prevalence, of AIDS in southern Uganda over the last decade, they reported.

The findings, not yet published, contradict earlier evidence that attributed Uganda's success in AIDS prevention largely to campaigns promoting
abstinence and faithfulness to sex partners. Much of the prevention work in the Bush administration's $15 billion global AIDS plan is built around those two themes, and Uganda is frequently cited as evidence that the strategy
works.
If the report here stands up to scrutiny -- and, more important, is borne out by surveys elsewhere in Uganda -- it will deflate one of the few supposed triumphs to come out of AIDS-battered Africa in the last decade.
The success of Uganda's ABC strategy -- the letters stand for "abstinence," "be faithful" and "(use) condoms" -- has been widely touted and is on the verge of being exported to neighboring countries with the help of American money.

"There is an urgent need to assess abstinence and monogamy in other parts of Uganda," said Maria J. Wawer, a physician at Columbia University's Mailman

_______

Sex And HIV: Behaviour-Change Trial Shows No Link
The East African (Nairobi)
March 17, 2003
Posted to the web March 19, 2003

By Paul Redfern, Special Correspondent Nairobi
A UK funded trial aimed at reducing the spread of Aids in Uganda by modifying sexual behaviour appears to have had little discernible effect.

The trial, carried out on around 15,000 people in the Masaka region, involved distributing condoms, treating around 12,000 victims of sexually transmitted diseases and counselling.
However, while the trial led to a marked change in sexual behavioural patterns, with the proportion reporting causal sexual partners falling from around 35 per cent to 15 per cent, there was no noticeable fall in the number of new cases of HIV infection, although there was a significant reduction in sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis and gonorrhoea.

The trial results, which were reported in the British medical journal The Lancet, have already aroused some controversy.

The team leader of the trial, Dr Anatoli Kamalai, acknowledged that there was "no measurable reduction" in HIV incidence with "no hint of even a small effect."

http://allafrica.com/stories/200303190482.html
http://allafrica.com/stories/printable/200303190482.html

THE GREAT HIV / AIDS HOAX

The multi-billion dollar AIDS/HIV fraud is based on two fabrications: that AIDS is a single disease and that it is caused by the HI virus or the "HIV virus" as some medical/media masterminds call it - perhaps they think the V in HIV stands for volcano.

In Japan "AIDS" is virtually unknown : yet, in random tests, 25% of people were found to be "HIV-positive".
HIV-positive response means nothing of any relevance to health: it can be triggered by vaccination, malnutrition, M.S., measles, influenza,
papilloma virus wart, Epstein Barr virus, leprosy, glandular fever, hepatitis, syphillis ... : over sixty different conditions.

Dr Robert E. Willner, inoculated himself with the blood of Pedro Tocino, a HIV-positive haemophiliac, on live Spanish television: an event which was not picked up the pharma-beholden British or US media.

The great HIV/AIDS lie was created by Robert Gallo who was found guilty of "scientific misconduct". "...instead of trying to prove his insane theories about AIDS to his peers...he went public. Then, with the help of
Margaret Heckler, former head of Health and Human Services, who was under great political pressure to come up with an answer to AIDS, the infamous
world press announcement of the discovery of the so-called AIDS virus came about.

This great fraud is now responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands... It was no accident that Gallo just happened to patent the test for HIV the day after the announcement...Gallo is now a multi-millionaire because of AIDS and his fraudulent AIDS test." Dr.
Willner.

By grouping together 25-plus different diseases and other allied factors -
pneumonia, herpes, candidiasis, salmonella, various cancers, infections, vaccine and antibiotic damage, amyl nitrate damage, malnutrition etc.and,
particularly in Africa, TB, malaria, dysentery leprosy and "slim disease" - and calling the whole thing an "AIDS epidemic", a multi-billion dollar/pound "AIDS research and treatment" racket has been created.

The mythical "HIV-induced AIDS plague" in the Third World generates huge sums of cash from Western relief organisations whilst smokescreening the
vaccine/drug boys, responsible for the carnage.

Every death of someone "HIV-positive" is recorded as an "AIDS death".

Periodically, the BBC/ITV/Press visit
Africa/Yugoslavia/Russia etc to
report on the "HIV/AIDS victims" and how they cannot afford the "life-saving AZT." Glaxo Wellcome's lethal drug, AZT, in combination with the diagnosis of
HIV-positive and the prediction, stated or implied, that - "You will die of AIDS" is one of the great pieces of Medical Black Magic - Voodoo Medicine at its most impressive: people have committed suicide on the
basis of the ludicrous diagnosis.

Pregnant women who are HIV-positive have been told to stop breast-feeding, dosed with AZT, have had abortions or have been sterilised. HIV-positive
babies who become ill -from vaccination or whatever - are automatically diagnosed as "suffering from AIDS".
"Considering that there is little scientific proof of the exact linkage of HIV and AIDS, is it ethical to prescribe AZT, a toxic chain terminator of DNA...to 150,000 Americans - among them pregnant women and newborn babies..? Rep.G Gutknecht US House of Representatives.

New Labour "Health" have now announced that all pregnant women in the UK will be "offered" a HIV test. Those who fall for the scam and who are diagnosed as "HIV positive" will be given the chance to have themselves and their unborn child permanently damaged by AZT etc. Pregnancy, itself, can cause a positive diagnosis.

AZT began as a "cancer drug" but was withdrawn for being too toxic: like being thrown out of the Gestapo for cruelty. Its effects include - cancer, hepatitis, dementia, seizures, anxiety, impotence, leukopaenia, , severe
nausea, ataxia, etc. and the termination of DNA synthesis. i.e. AIDS/death by prescription. AZT eventually kills all those who continue to take it.

"WARNING : Retrovir (AZT)...has been associated with symptomatic myopathy, similar to that produced by Human Immunodeficiency Virus..." Glaxo
Wellcome literature!

None of which stops the medical trade from pushing it on every trusting sap who is not ill to start with but is labelled with the "HIV-positive" nonsense and then destroyed by AZT; with "AIDS" getting the blame - and
more billions pouring in for the drug boys, vivisectors, animal breeders and the rest. The latest stunt is to give a "cocktail" of drugs - including AZT, of course, and at £12,000 per head, per year - to all homosexual men who are "HIV-positive".

A particularly good scam is to haul into court someone "guilty of deliberately infecting the victim with the 'HIV-Virus which causes AIDS' " which then develops into "full-blown AIDS" - no mention of vaccine,
antibiotic damage etc or full-blown AZT. Over 2000 - and rising, of the world's scientists are now disputing the HIV hoax, their efforts being continually suppressed by the AIDS establishment, the pharmaceutical/vivisection syndicate and their political and media lackeys

Is the African "AIDS Pandemic" An Infectious Misconception?
UNAIDS image of Africa: "Almost 30 million Africans now have HIV/AIDS."
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."
© afrol News, 2004.
By Rainer Chr. Hennig, afrol News editor.
© afrol News

The men behind the myth

Pharma Salaries. The high cost of research
Source: AFL-CIO Executive Paywatch

Henry A. McKinnell
Chairman and CEO
Pfizer Inc.
In 2004, Henry A. McKinnell raked in $28,925,241 in totalcompensation including stock option grants from Pfizer Inc..

And
Henry A. McKinnell has another $15,096,811 in unexercised stock options from previous years.

John C. Martin
President and CEO
Gilead Sciences
In 2004, John C. Martin raked in $18,223,931 in total compensationincluding stock option grants from Gilead Sciences. From previous
years' stock option grants, the Gilead Sciences executive cashed out $13,213,769 in stock option exercises. And John C. Martin has another
$113,984,508 in unexercised stock options from previous years.

Henri A. Termeer
CEO
Genzyme Corp.
In 2003, Henri A. Termeer raked in $17,154,464 in total compensation including stock option grants from Genzyme Corp. From previous years'
stock option grants, the Genzyme Corp. executive cashed out $16,202,363 in stock option exercises. And Henri A. Termeer has another $58,964,049 in unexercised stock options from previous years.

Sidney Taurel
Chairman President and CEO
Lilly (Eli) & Co.
In 2004, Sidney Taurel raked in $15,511,784 in total compensation including stock option grants from Lilly (Eli) & Co. From previous
years' stock option grants, the Lilly (Eli) & Co. executive cashed out $4,091,400 in stock option exercises. And Sidney Taurel has
another $13,119,533 in unexercised stock options from previous years.

David M. Mott
Vice Chairman President and CEO
MedImmune Inc.
In 2003, David M. Mott raked in $15,330,493 in total compensation including stock option grants from MedImmune Inc. And David M. Mott
has another $10,936,529 in unexercised stock options from previous years.

Robert Essner
Chairman President and CEO
Wyeth
In 2004, Robert Essner raked in $11,764,945 in total compensation including stock option grants from Wyeth. And Robert Essner has another $4,278,990 in unexercised stock options from previous years.

Miles D. White
Chairman and CEO
Abbott Labs
In 2004, Miles D. White raked in $11,298,642 in total compensation including stock option grants from Abbott Labs. And Miles D. White has
another $21,450,196 in unexercised stock options from previous years.

Kevin W. Sharer
Chairman CEO and President
Amgen
In 2004, Kevin W. Sharer raked in $11,031,845 in total compensation including stock option grants from Amgen. From previous years' stock
option grants, the Amgen executive cashed out $140,757 in stock option exercises. And Kevin W. Sharer has another $14,392,208 in unexercised stock options from previous years.

Raymond V. Gilmartin
Chairman President and CEO
Merck & Co.
In 2004, Raymond V. Gilmartin raked in $10,568,702 in total
compensation including stock option grants from Merck & Co. From previous years' stock option grants, the Merck & Co. executive cashed
out $34,802,748 in stock option exercises. And Raymond V. Gilmartin has another $4,982,632 in unexercised stock options from previous
years.

Robert J. Coury
Vice Chairman and CEO
Mylan Laboratories
In 2004, Robert J. Coury raked in $9,277,603 in total compensation including stock option grants from Mylan Laboratories. And Robert J. Coury has another $11,984,966 in unexercised stock options from previous years.

Howard Solomon
Chairman and CEO
Forest Laboratories
In 2004, Howard Solomon raked in $8,996,921 in total compensation
including stock option grants from Forest Laboratories. From previous years' stock option grants, the Forest Laboratories executive cashed
out $90,546,050 in stock option exercises. And Howard Solomon has another $318,459,960 in unexercised stock options from previous
years.

P R. Dolan
Chairman and CEO
Bristol-Myers Squibb
In 2004, P R. Dolan raked in $8,796,679 in total compensation including stock option grants from Bristol-Myers Squibb. And P R. Dolan has another $1,471,145 in unexercised stock options from previous years

Robert L. Parkinson
Chairman and CEO
Baxter International Inc.
In 2004, Robert L. Parkinson raked in $8,757,902 in total compensation including stock option grants from Baxter International Inc. And Robert L. Parkinson has another $1,833,000 in unexercised stock options from previous years.

Jonathan W. Ayers
President and CEO
IDEXX Laboratories
In 2004, Jonathan W. Ayers raked in $8,094,317 in total compensation including stock option grants from IDEXX Laboratories. From previous
years' stock option grants, the IDEXX Laboratories executive cashed out $102,771 in stock option exercises. And Jonathan W. Ayers has
another $14,719,211 in unexercised
stock options from previous years

AIDS = AID$

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