Posted on 06/14/2005 5:30:24 PM PDT by Voice in your head
According to a paper published in last month’s World Economics, there are four anomalies relating to the HIV/AIDS epidemic which make it unique and, crucially, question the policy approach in developing countries. The paper’s varied authors--an English professor of public accountability; an Austrian obstetrician; a Canadian professor of pathology; and a retired Scottish professor of public health--have provided a fascinating insight into why HIV/AIDS is different, not only between rich and poor countries, but between neighboring African countries.
This is a brave and important paper, not least because anyone contradicting AIDS orthodoxy is seen not unlike a Holocaust denier.
Crippling epidemics are not new: Europe’s Black Death (bubonic plague) from 1347-51 killed two-thirds of Europe. Other less well-known examples often decimated populations--yellow fewer (1740-48), smallpox (1870-71), dysentery during the Crimean and Boer wars, and the famous 1918-19 influenza epidemic that killed more than the First World War. The most recent was the much less devastating severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak of 2002-03.
All these epidemics share multiple characteristics, which HIV does not. All have an identifiable starting point, a verifiable end point, short duration, and require traditional policies of isolation, quarantine and hygiene to minimize transmission of the causal pathogen.
But what of AIDS? As the authors point out: “The HIV/AIDS epidemic began as a localized outbreak in California and New York (not in east Africa, as claimed) and became international within 15 years, with apparent devastating lethality in sub-Saharan Africa and some other developing countries. This complex syndrome is currently regarded as by far the greatest threat to economic and human survival in the affected countries.”
First, the main AIDS-qualifying diseases in developing countries (such as tuberculosis, persistent fever and/or weight loss and diarrhea) are totally different from the main AIDS-qualifying diseases in developed countries (such as Kaposi’s sarcoma, pneumocystis carinii).
Second, a diagnosis of HIV and AIDS is very loosely defined in developing countries but is strictly defined in developed countries. In rich countries, an HIV antibody test is always done but in the poor world it is not “necessary” and has not been performed in millions of cases.
Third, AIDS is distributed and appears to be acquired overwhelmingly heterosexually in developing countries but overwhelmingly by homosexuality and by drug abusers in developed countries. Fourth, the definition of AIDS has been changed four times, so that we now refer only to HIV/AIDS rather than to HIV and AIDS separately. Thus, cases of asymptomatic HIV are called HIV/AIDS.
Furthermore, each change has broadened the definition of AIDS-qualifying diseases and caused the number of “cases” to rise continuously. For instance, cancer of the uterine cervix is classed as AIDS-qualifying, removing much of the skew to male prevalence in developed countries.
The authors conclude, in effect, that in developing countries endemic diseases--many linked to overcrowding, malnourishment, famine, war, sexually transmitted diseases etc--have been reclassified as AIDS. They say: “In economic terms, we suggest that the same asymmetry of information is being used to justify continuation and expansion of inordinate, ring-fenced, and inefficient policies for prevention and control.”
The authors are not denying the syndrome in rich countries, are not saying antiretrovirals cannot control HIV, or anything else to deny the existence of HIV. But they are saying that “there is an alarming possibility that the opportunity costs of alternative interventions aimed at other more prevalent and equally dangerous threats to health are being denied comparable, or any, attention … and vaccine research should be redirected from HIV vaccines towards more effective vaccines and treatments that can be administered to large numbers (millions) of people to control TB and malaria”.
It may well be time to allocate some of the ballooning AIDS budget to measuring what is actually causing problems in Africa. Does the syndrome in Africa deserve the funding allocation it receives, or is it misallocated and should it be re-directed? This latest research suggests that it should be reallocated to old foes such as malaria and tuberculosis, and to water quality improvements.
Roger Bate is a resident fellow at AEI.
Riddle me this: Why are there so many AIDS victims, but not Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, and Syphilis victims? I guess its politically correct to be a turd-burglar.
Would it be indelicate to ask what you think it is due to?
May I ask where you are from?
Before the funding in CA got squared away.. there was so much talk about "the monkey disease" (that AIDS was spread from monkeys to humans). Oh yes, back then, serious articles.. discussing HOW the disease may have spread from monkeys to humans.
Check my homepage.
Every scientific report I have read points to the origin of the HIV virus as being a mutation from Chimpanzees/Apes native to Africa that somehow crossed species lines into humans...I have never heard of any evidence that HIV/AIDS originated in the US.
Is the author confusing "first diagnoses" and "origin"?
It would make sense that the most developed medical care system would 'first diagnose' the problem...but that is a far cry from 'it originated' here.
Excellent, thank you. I'm sure you bring a lot of first hand info to our discussions and that's most welcome.
Having it be a crime to give out the names of the infected is an unusually nasty kind of politics. It says omething about where some perverts are skulking...
In the case of malaria, TB, and waterborne -- most of the dead comprise those who've not been innoculated through the various programs of "AIDE" that have been going on in Africa (say, from America) for as long as I can recall?
And I am equally certain that it is not caused by 'HIV' retroviral infection.
The truth is that attributin it to 'malairia' and 'poor water' is a grotesque oversimplification of the actual position of those who attribute African 'AIDS' to cause(s) other than HIV infection. Basically our position is that there is no epidemiological evidence for any superpositioned cause for any of the diseases found in Africa. They are just what they always were.
If true, then it is pretty clear that AIDS is the gay community's gift to mankind. Not a lot of wild monkeys roaming around the Bay Area and New York.
Absolutely correct.
But there isn't any good reason to suppose that this virus recently jumped from apes to man.
All the epidemiology indicates that HIV is a very old infection in man; hundreds or thousands of years old, in fact. All evidence points to the conclusion that HIV is a benign passenger retrovirus, just like many other similar virii that have been hitchhiking in man since time immemorial.
Speznetz asked a good question. He obviously has some insight into what causes the "age gap". I was speculating as to a reason why the age gap. I'm hoping he'll provide more insight.
Here's a couple of articles that I find very informative.
http://www.fumento.com/disease/aids2005.html
http://gnn.tv/articles/article.php?id=1035
I feel like giving a very simple answer. The word ‘Mu.’ But since this is not a philosophical discussion (and I am unsure how many would be willing to delve into logical/illogical communicative entanglements), I will strive towards a different answer. However I have noticed that every now and then this type of thread pops up ….where it is either trying to assert that AIDS does not exist, or that it is solely due to homosexuality throughout the world (including the 3rd world). And there have been some interesting ‘facts’ to back up both assertions, some even heading into the ludicrous (one of the more interesting is when some dude, belonging to the ‘it is all due to gay sex’ camp started quoting ‘scientific research’ that a simple search proved to actually be from some magazine that also debated psychic water dousing and UFO abductions, and a ‘scientist’ who was actually a member of the Brahma Kumaris cult).
But I haven’t answered your question now, have I? Let me be political and try to avoid all the semantic snares and encapsulation that seem to trigger automatic responses in some freepers. Thus the following is what I think it is (and you can quote me): It is due to a weird - probably extra-terrestrial - outbreak of Malaria, Typhoid and TB, which may very well be related to homosexuality (since, as certain Freepers have said, Africans practice 'birth control by having anal sex' ....yep, some genius actually said that even though he had never set foot there ..that was his opinion and yet he stated it as fact), and that only targets people between the ages of 15-49. It also, for some cryptic reason, ignores the very young and the very old, thus implying that the ‘new’ Malaria/Typhoid/TB (from here on I shall refer to it as MTT) is very different from the old version. And not only that, but several African countries (Kenya and South Africa for example) always test orphans from parents who died from AIDS …I mean who died from MTT ….and those orphans have antibodies that show up in AIDS – MTT – tests. The reason for all the checkups in orphans is because with proper care and drug regimen (which is why it only takes part in the richer countries) some of the kids can sero-reverse into negative test, as long as it is started when they are tots. So, I conclusion, the issue is due to a weird case of MTT, which is so strange as to be probably extra-terrestrial, and this MTT is hitting adults hard. Uganda managed to stop the dire straits they were in through educating people about abstinence and sexual health …I meant about preventing mosquitoes, dirty water and pulmonary disease since we are talking about MTT …and Uganda has literally saved itself. Southern Africa (eg South Africa, Zimbabwe etc) has not been able to achieve similar success due to many politicians refusing to recognize that AIDS – I mean MTT – exists, and they claim that it is due to diseases like malaria, or due to poor dietary health, and thus refuse to institute programs like the ones Uganda implemented. Thus I blame the weird case of MTT.
Hopefully that will satisfy all parties since i have noticed people have issues with semantics. Maybe by calling it 'exotic MTT' everyone is happy.
Between the years 1966-1977, almost 100 million Blacks living in Central Africa were injected by the WHO. Scientists now speculate that the smallpox vaccine might have awakened a "dormant" AIDS virus infection on the continent.
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