Dirty needles research [by US scientists] rejected [by UN because ... ]

The United Nations has disputed the findings of United States researchers which says most HIV infections in Africa result from dirty medical needles.

The suggestion that the spread of the virus that can cause Aids is closely linked to unsafe medical care challenges widely held scientific views.

The research estimates that about 60% of people with HIV in Africa become infected mainly through contaminated needles rather than through sexual contact, but the UNAids organisation puts the figure at nearer 5%.

UNAids says the conclusions they have drawn are not supported by adequate studies.

We're concerned that a report like this might tend to make people drop their guard and not use condoms UNAids chief scientific officer Catherine Hankins "Unsafe sex continues to be the major route of transmission throughout the world," she said. "We're concerned that a report like this might tend to make people drop their guard and not use condoms, when it's exactly using condoms that is required at this point.

The organisation does say that more resources are needed to ensure sterile medical care in all countries, not just the industrialised ones.

It would cost $290 million to ensure a clean needle for every medical treatment or vaccination in the world in two years' time, research shows.

Dr Christopher Uoma, HIV co-ordinator for ActionAid in Kenya, said he had not a chance to study the full research but was initially shocked by the findings.

"It could have profound implications for our programme and Africa in general," he said.

More fiddling while Rome burns. Millions of children are dying and we debate an argument over the cause. RCR, UK

"It could lead to a serious change in terms of health behaviour with people being reluctant to enter hospitals."

He also warned that it could encourage some people to revert to previous habits of risky sexual behaviour.

He pointed out that HIV epidemics in South Africa and Zimbabwe, which had good health systems, were less developed than those in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, where medical care was poorer.

This was the opposite of what would be expected if most cases were transmitted through medical procedures, he said.

The US researchers reviewed hundreds of studies on HIV transmission across Africa, going back 20 years, and concluded the main cause was the use of dirty needles for medical injections.

The research, published in the International Journal of Sexually Transmitted Diseases and Aids, was funded privately by members of the team.

This is the summary of the actual study:

Summary: The consensus among influential AIDS experts that heterosexual trans-mission accounts for 90% of HIV infections in African adults emerged no later than 1988. We examine evidence available through 1988, including risk measures associating HIV with sexual behaviour, health care, and socioeconomic variables, HIV in children, and risks for HIV in prostitutes and STD patients. Evidence permits the interpretation that health care exposures caused more HIV than sexual transmission. In general population studies, crude risk measures associate more than half of HIV infections in adults with health care exposures. Early studies did not resolve questions about direction of causation (between injections and HIV) and confound (between injections and STD).

Preconceptions about African sexuality and a desire to maintain public trust in health care may have encouraged discounting of evidence. We urge renewed, evidence-based, investigations into the proportion of African HIV from non-sexual exposures.

Keywords: HIV, Africa, nosocomial, iatrogenic, risk factors.

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Note: Africa seems to be the sole location of massive spread of AIDS via heterosexual sex. This study torpedoes that assumption which is why the PC-driven scientists will try to keep it suppressed.

Let's see if The New York Times features it.

This was the opposite of what would be expected if most cases were transmitted through medical procedures, he said.

Huh? Wouldn't countries with better health systems (i.e. money) be less likely to reuse needles, so have lower infection rates, while poorer countries would cut corners, and have increased rates. Just as the study indicates.

Do they have a logic malfunction or what?

Yup. We're concerned that the truth might interfere with our social engineering.

There is nothing wrong with the logic.

This is from Medpundit which has a link to the entire 14-page report.

Some of the highlights of the study:

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" .

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".

In the poorest countries people have little or no access to injections and thus are not exposed to dirty needles. In the "richest" countries (actually, those which are less poor) there is a push to deliver health care, much of it by poorly trained non-professionals. As far as HIV is concerned no injections is preferable to injections with dirty needles.

For what it is worth, I find the incidence of HIV in children of uninfected mothers very convincing.

Of course, SOMETHING is creating a huge HIV rate down there .... and no where else.

But it sounds like the UNAIDS officials have a one-track mind (and are locked into the one solution that doesn't work, hasn't worked, and will never work.

By the way, how do they expect hundreds of millions of dirt-poor Africans to get and use "fresh/sterile condoms" EVERY TIME they want to have sex (4-30 times a month? -or whatever) when they CAN'T afford clean needles for a once-a-year innoculation or malaria shot or tetenus shot?

ANd how are the UNAIDS people going to get fresh/clean/sterile condoms to everybody every day when most Africans can't even get clean/potable water?

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