Posted on 12/13/2002 9:34:18 AM PST by Neuromancer
HIV Infection/AIDS BMJ 2002;325:1380
( 14 December )
HIV infection rate among South African children found to be 5.6%
A new study on HIV infection and AIDS in South Africa has shown that children aged 2 to 14 years have an infection rate of 5.6% leading to worries that South Africa's other epidemicchild abuseis linked to the spread of HIV.
The Nelson Mandela/HSRC [Human Sciences Research Council] study of HIV and AIDS released last week draws for the first time on a representative sample of the local population including all ages and population groups, instead of the previous sample, which comprised pregnant women reporting to state antenatal clinics.
The new study, based on nearly 9000 participants and using anonymous saliva tests, has also shown that the white population is much more at risk from the virus than previously thought. Some 6.2% were found to carry the virus. Black Africans had the highest prevalence18.4%
Investigators are not sure why the prevalence among young children is so high. Although abuse of children is common, that is not thought to be the whole explanation because abuse is more common in girls than boys and yet the HIV rate was found to be similar between the sexes. The situation is likely to give rise to more research.
Pat Sidley, Johannesburg
I posted #3....(holding back some pretty serious sarcastic quips)
What I do believe is that the nonsense spouted by Mbeki and others on this post about HIV and AIDs (no such link) would not have been promulgated by the previous government. South Africa had a western medical establishment, even accomplishing the world's first heart transplant. They would not have rejected aid to provide AZT.
Those who spout this disinformation have not seen ther reality of the severe increase in mortality rates of those in the prime of their life. It is not malaria or TB, diseases which are commonly recognized in Africa. It is HIV and its accompanying diseases of the suppressed immune system. No Zimbabwean families with which I am acquainted has not lost at least one sibling to this disease. It is spoken of furtively, as there is a great stigma attached.
But, most of the time they didn't even bother the test.
These stats are not reliable.
But when something is politicized in this way, and big money rides on it, serious question are ignored.
Can you find us a paper that satifies the following criteria?
The rules for isolation of a retrovirus were thoroughly discussed at the Pasteur Institute, Paris, in 1973, and are the logical minimum requirements for establishing the independent existence of HIV. They are:
1.Culture of putatively infected tissue.
2. Purification of specimens by density gradient ultracentrifugation.
3. Electron micrographs of particles exhibiting the morfological characteristics and dimensions (100-120 nm) of retroviral particles at the sucrose (or percoll) density of 1.16 gm/ml and containing nothing else, not even particles of other morphologies or dimensions.
4. Proof that the particles contain reverse transcriptase.
5. Analysis of the particles' proteins and RNA and proof that these are unique.
6. Proof that 1-5 are a property only of putatively infected tissues and can not be induced in control cultures. These are identical cultures, that is, tissues obtained from matched, unhealthy subjects and cultured under identical conditions differing only in that they are not putatively infected with a retrovirus.
7. Proof that the particles are infectious, that is when PURE particles are introduced into an uninfected culture or animal, the identical particle is obtained as shown by repeating steps 1-5.
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