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.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchstp/tb/faqs/qa.htm
And Let's not forget Jocelyn Elders and the entire "tolerance/sexual" lobbies asserting CONDOMS would STAVE OFF AIDS. Like they knew? They didn't.
Recently, I visited the Focus on the Family web site. They have links explaining among other things that homosexual activists overstate the fraction of the population that is homosexual. They claim 10%; the best studies indicate 1-3%. But the web site also had a link to a recent article by Fumento asserting that the reason HIV/AIDS is so prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa is that a large fraction of African men have sex with men. Perhaps, I thought to myself, the gay activisits are right, and 10% of the population is gay (a "normal and healthy human sexual variation" as the activists would say). Or, just maybe Fumento is wrong. HIV can spread among populations of highly promiscuous heterosexuals, especially in regions where hygiene is poor, which is an accurate characterization of sub-Saharan African sexual behavior.
The truth of the matter is this: The risk of heterosexual AIDS in this country is still relatively small. (Not zero, but small.) But we know that anal sex is dangerous, we know that promiscuity is dangerous, and we know the only safe and moral path is abstinence before marriage, and monogamy in marriage.
BRING BACK DDT!
That will help fight malaria.
Have you read this one? http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1034938/posts
Lots of good info here too.
Agreed. I find it ironic, however, that gay and liberal politicians wishing to "turn this into a equal opportunity" disease.. have wielded AIDS into the best reasons to be especially sexually circumspect and monogamous. There goes the bulk of the libertine age of "free love"....
However, I with purpose discluded the word "marriage" in re the above. Why? Tooo many years of gay politicians saying that if gays could be married, they'd then be monogamous. I saw that as political emotional blackmail even waaaay back then.
I don't know. It's a good question.
Wow, lots and lots of data. Thank you for the referral!
I think it is Ken Alibek's and Biopreparat's work to destabilize the West with a viral bioweapon and it backfired
/anti communist paranoia :)
AIDS has been politicized since the beginning. Many have forgotten that it was originally known as GRIDS, but was soon changed to AIDS in an effort to be more PC.
re. the "Factsheet":
I read it.
It is a mere apologia for all the mistaken assumptions and wrongheaded hypotheses that continue to plague this issue and cripple intelligent discussion, and are repeated unashamedly in the document as if they were true.
I am tempted to call it pitiful, but that is too benign a term. It is actually shameful that such a misleading and deceitful document could be produced with funding that ultimately comes from taxpayers.
For shame.
Good post. I like people whom deal in logic instead of emotion. Good home page also!
Oh yeah. The gay men's hepatitus study in NY that was secretly run by the CIA to A) test the AIDS virus and/or B) decimate the gay population. Presumably to make the world safe for homophobes.
Again, extremely sad. Another diversion from the rational ways of dealing with the disease. Many unnecessary deaths.
Oh yes, back then, serious articles.. discussing HOW the disease may have spread from monkeys to humans.
I do not understand why Duesberg cannot let the AIDS denialist theory go. I suspect it is because of his key role in retroviral research -- perhaps he cannot believe a retrovirus can do this kind of damage. It certainly can: It is of course unethical to prove HIV is the cause of AIDS by injecting a healthy volunteer with the virus. But very similar viruses cause similar diseases in apes and cats, and this has been shown by doing the obvious experiments.
AIDS denialists need to consider what they are doing: Duesberg is asserting that antiviral medicines are part of the cause of AIDS. Given the strong evidence that these medicines are extending lives, it is terrible to suggest to patients to not take these. I remember vividly what happened in the mid 1990s, when the protease inhibitors first appears: people started to talk about the Lazarus effect -- desperately sick people staged dramatic recoveries. I myself have met people who have had this happen.
Please do not stake your own health on the medical equivalent of UFOs or Bigfoot. You can find highly credentialed scientists who advance those theories too.
... it was called "something" before it was called "aids". I have this vague memory of that. Then the FORMAL.."AIDS". Was it "Gay Retro Imm Defiency Syndrome"?
Yeah? Try being a teen and having the monkey/human thing being proposed, prated, described in the newspapers, news media -- as "intelligent discussion". With details describing the "hypothesis". We're talking bestiality being presented and put forth under the guise of "intelligent, rational discourse" from ADULTS in public venues. I'm tellin' ya.. dog were running scared back then.
Reminds me of the old joke: What's the hardest thing about getting AIDS? Trying to convince your mom you're Haitian.
Your welcome! It strengthened my belief that the gays and their abettors have been extorting money from folks to pay for the consequences of their behavior from the gitgo.
With sadness, I recall these "conspiracies. Your tightly worded: "Many unnecessary deaths" communicates perfectly how I feel about it. Then, and now. It was very painful to witness co-workers ill and dying. Playing sick nurse, attending funerals. Even worse, to know they were used as mere "statistics" to bolster the radical gay agenda. And, the gay community believed the lies. Those who didn't were pretty quickly shut up.
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