It’s worse than you imagined (AIDS in Africa- Warning: graphic discussion of sexual behavior)

The Spectator ^ | 3/1/2003 | Hugh Russell

[cookcounty]

Q>"Why are all these people dying at accelerating rates."

Answer, through weakened immune systems....you catch anything that comes down the pike. HIV is one pre-condition .

But my question is "Why Africa?" "Why heterosexual Africa?" Other places are poor with bad hygiene and don't have numbers remotely approaching Africa. The article is, to my limited knowledge, the first time the CAUSES of African "high frequency" have even been addressed. I have no idea whether the article is accurate or not, but finally somebody shows a little curiousity about this issue.

[tallhappy]

Re 22.

Not necessarily. There are serious problems with HIV theory.

[Maelstrom]

Certainly they are less moral as compared to most of the US. For all the attempts at reducing American morality that can be witnessed in public schools and on most any college campus, we are still fairly moral.

However, specifically, I was referring to Christian Morals, or any reasonable facsimily thereof.

Even here in the United States it can be very clear that adhering to a suitably moral code, such as that provided by Chritianity, will reduce the spread of AIDS and might kill it as a threat entirely within any moral population. Cases would be limited to families of people whom have been infected by the rare contaminated blood infusion, or the rarer accidental blood contact. IF we're moral, it stops with us and spread no further.

[Jack of all Trades]

Turn off your TV and engage the people around you and you will find that The world is far more civilized than you previously thought.

[DaGman]

"You die from these diseases, not HIV."

Yes, you are correct. HIV does not kill directly. Death occurs from diseases contracted because of a lowered immunity that is caused by HIV. When one says HIV kills, one is in invoking a verbal and procedural shortcut that compiles the facts that HIV causes immuno-deficiency which leads to greater susceptibility to disease, which leads to an earlier than normal death.

[1rudeboy]

HIV+ patients are more likely to succumb to a variety of illnesses as opposed to their HIV- counterparts. We can argue about how to attribute their deaths, but ultimately one cannot avoid the fact that their bodies are piling-up at the morgue.

[1rudeboy]

The fact that there is a low incidence of female-to-male HIV transmission in the industrialized West does not neccessarily negate the possibility that there may be higher rates of female-to-male transmission in the African sub-continent.

[fuente]

Hmmm. Do you know something about the physical or cultural differences of hetrosexual activity in Africa vs the West that make this possible? Probably not. Fact: the likelyhood of female to male transmissions is so small, it is not even considered a transmission route by those who study the disease spread. It is widely believed that the number of documented incidence of female to male transfer is less than 5000. That's 5000 out of 50 million cases!

There are tons of cultural taboos and differences that make this kind of behavioral reporting very unreliable in Africa. Several culture around the world don't consider people gay if they swing both ways. "Woman are for babies, boys are for fun."

Remove man-man sex, tainted blood transfusions(almost as rare), and dirty needles, and you have VIRTUALLY NO CHANCE OF BEING INFECTED! P-E-R-I-O-D!

[537 Votes]

None of the article's explanations for the spread of AIDS in Africa make sense. Even among homosexuals, it generally requires scores and sometimes hundreds of partners to contract AIDS. A 'ritual cleansing' that amounts to a single one-night stand per lifetime isn't going to do it. Nor is a 'secret society' or 'dry sex.'

What the scope of the African AIDS crisis does indicate is that there may be some truth to the assertion that AIDS is basically HIV plus low T cell count, a diagnosis and not a disease.

[absalom01]

HIV+ patients are more likely to succumb...

That's not germane to the present discussion.

You seem rather well informed on the issue, so you must know that an "African AIDS" diagnosis does not require that one establish that the patient is HIV+. There are plenty of good excuses for this, ie, the cost of testing, limited medical resources etc., but that at least should open the door to some level of doubt about just what caused a particular death. Malnutrition, unsanitary water supplies, and the other ills that come with economic privation are quite adequate to explain the described M&M, without invoking a scary virus that, perhaps coincidentally, has captured the imagination of the Western elite. Problem is, it's much more diffucult to deal with these seemingly intractible problems, and a whole lot less profitable for the AIDS lobby and the thugs running most countries in Africa.

[Teacher317]

Try reading the article more closely. It discusses sexual habits that contribute to open skin tears on the male's penis, thereby giving the virus a direct route to the bloodstream, rather than the usual, and rarer, trip up the urethra and into the bladder or testicles then to the bloodstream.

Also, "virtaully no chance", mutliplied by the millions of infections there, leads to significant numbers. Let's use 99.99% likely to not be spread from female to male (I'd bet this is a high guesstimate, but you'd say the opposite, so I'll use this as a middle ground). Just 0.01% times 100,000,000 equals 10,000. That isn't much, but I'd bet it matters to those 10,000 people.

[1rudeboy]

That appears to be the point of this article . . . that there may be other factors affecting the spread of the HIV in Africa.

[1rudeboy]

I do not disagree.

[fuente]

The last example could be a reason of the increase in that part of Africa, but what about all of the others. AIDS is spreading like wildfire in many other non-dry sex areas, why? The first two reasons are BOGUS! (unless they are doing the same as the third, not mentioned).

I'm not going to play down the staggering numbers of those who are infected in F->M infections. I used the domestic numbers, and I'm sure Africa's numbers are horrific. My point is that this article plays two BOGUS reason and a real reason in order to purpetuate the mythology of easy F->M transmission, therby making it a mainstream issue. IF we're gonna talk about a REAL and HORRIFIC problem, let's cut the crap out of the discussion first.

Without the transmission of blood or semen, HIV is not passed--PERIOD! Even with this, the odds of transmission is far from guaranteed.

[A_perfect_lady]

��5{��������st certainly NOT an expert on African cultures, but I did take 3 years of grad level anthropology classes and I have never heard of any of those three practices this person has described. I can believe the first two, but that last one???

Oh, well, maybe. I mean, these ARE the folks who infibulate women and sew 'em up like purses. I suppose they're capable of just about anything. And I HAVE heard the story, mentioned by another poster on this thread, that they think sex with a virgin will cure them. And that they'll rape a 2 year old if they think it will help them.

I'm with Kim du Toit on this one: Let Africa Sink.

[Maelstrom]

It helps to read the article.

3. Dry sex. I warned you that this one would make you wince. Again, it’s not something that’s talked about much, but many here believe that the practice is a major factor in the spread of the virus, particularly when prostitution is involved.

Dry sex is what it sounds like. For reasons that baffle me and perhaps most European men, many Zambian and other African men prefer to make love to a woman when she is, or appears to be, unaroused. A truck-driver told me that he liked his partner to be ‘dry and tight’ because it made her feel like a virgin. He found a moist vagina distasteful — ‘like she’s making water’, as he put it. To satisfy him, his girls had to be difficult to penetrate.

...Just how painful sex becomes for the woman can be imagined. And with the pain come abrasions, splits and other injuries, which result in a greatly increased likelihood of the transmission of the Aids virus.

SO...Yes, we do know something about the cultural differences of heterosexuality in Africa vs. the West that make it far more likely that transmission will occur in Africa.
<br Morality is the cure.

[Straight Vermonter]

So these people are dying of the flu?

I have an interesting statistic that you may wish to consider. In South Africa, where the records are best, the AIDS rate has soared in the past 25 years. Looking deeper into the health statistics, however, shows that the rate of infectious disease deaths has remained constant.

[FITZ]

HIV+ patients

The HIV test is fairly expensive --first the screening test and then a more expensive Western blot or other test---how many of these people have actually had the test and how many tests have been confirmed? Are they proven HIV+ by testing?

[FITZ]

Fact: the likelyhood of female to male transmissions is so small, it is not even considered a transmission route by those who study the disease spread.

I've read that circumcism is the factor here ---an uncircumsized male has the same chances as a woman has to contract HIV because of the surface area and type of tissue exposed. Supposedly uncirmcumcized men have 8 times the rate of AIDS as circumcized.