What about Africa ? Sex has nothing to do with it
Overall, 35% of Africa’s children are at higher risk of death than they were 10 years ago. Every hour, more than 500 African mothers lose a small child. In 2002, more than four million African children died. [...]
Mostly, death comes in familiar garb. The main causes among children are depressingly recognizable: the perinatal conditions closely associated with poverty; diarrhoeal diseases; pneumonia and other lower respiratory tract conditions; and malaria. [It has nothing to do with ‘AIDS’, these were also common 50 years ago.]
WHO, The World Health Report 2003.
Notes from the conference AIDS in Africa, December 8th 2003, in the European Parliament.
Nutritional AIDS dominates the scene in South Africa today as indeed it did during Apartheid. In the middle 50’s and 60’s, 50% of black children were dead before the age of 5. The causes of death were recorded as: PNEUMONIA, HIGH FEVER, DEHYDRATION and intractable DIARRHOEA due to protein deficiency.
Today, these clinical features are called AIDS. Today in South Africa, TB is the leading cause of death and morbidity amongst Africans, but this is called AIDS.
In conclusion, NUTRITIONAL AIDS is a direct result of Apartheid in association with capitalist iatrogenesis - hence the shacks (favelas), lack of sanitation, lack of clean drinking water, unemployment and destitution.
Prof. Sam Mhlongo, MD, Chief Specialist Family Physician & Head of The Department of Family Medicine at The Medical University of Southern Africa; Member of the South African Presidential AIDS Advisory Panel, South Africa.
In Tanzania, the population of the Kagera region, epicenter of AIDS 15 years ago, hasn’t ceased growing since then, ie with a 53% increase between 1988 and 2002.
The demographic catastrophe expected as a result of the ‘deadliest epidemic in history’ did not materialize, on the contrary. Yet, no real, concrete anti-viral measures were applied in the region. The only explanations for this lie in the improvement in the economic conditions and in development aid. An example of a global approach to development is found in the NGO, Partage Tanzania.
While the experts, with their statistics, would have one believe that there exists an extremely serious HIV/AIDS epidemic, no trace of an epidemic is observable in the field. All that can be seen is a very poor, under-nourished population suffering from malaria, endemic immunodeficiency and common illnesses.
Tanzania, Kagera Region, epicentre of AIDS 15 years ago: Present situation, by Marc Deru, MD and Nutritionist, Member of the Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of AIDS, Belgium.
During the 1990s HIV propagated rapidly in Zimbabwe, increasing at an estimated rate of 12% annually. At the same time, the overall sexually transmitted infections (STI) burden declined an estimated 25% [...] while there was a parallel increase in reported condom use by high-risk persons (prostitutes, lorry drivers, miners, and young people).
This example frames the problem: why would a relatively low efficiency sexually transmitted virus like HIV outrun more efficiently transmitted STI? In the notable four-cities study, many common sexual risk factors linked to HIV transmission (eg, high rate of partner change, sex with prostitutes, and low condom use) were not correlated with HIV prevalence
Brewer DD, Brody S, et al. Mounting anomalies in the epidemiology of HIV in Africa: cry the beloved paradigm, International Journal of STD & AIDS 2003; 14: 144 - 147
That is one of the David Gisselquist group papers alluded to later in this page.
Abstract of a thorough review of the situation of “AIDS” in Africa:
AIDS in Africa: Distinguishing Fact and Fiction, E. Papadopulos-Eleopulos (1) Valendar F. Turner (2) John M. Papadimitriou (3) Harvey Bialy (4), World Journal of Microbiology & Biotechnology, 1995;11:135-143
(1) Department of Medical Physics, The Royal Perth Hospital, Western Australia; (2) Department of Emergency Medicine, Royal Perth Hospital; (3) Department of Pathology, University of Western Australia; (4) Bio/Technology
The data widely purporting to show the existence and heterosexual transmission in Africa of a new syndrome caused by a retrovirus which induces immune deficiency is critically evaluated. It is concluded that both acquired immune deficiency (AID) and the symptoms and diseases which constitute the clinical syndrome S) are long standing in Africa, affect both sexes equally and are caused by factors other than HIV. The presence of positive HIV serology in Africans represents no more than cross-reactivity caused by an abundance of antibodies induced by the numerous infectious and parasitic diseases which are endemic in Africa, that is, a positive HIV antibody test does not prove HIV infection. Given the above, one would expect to find a high prevalence of “AIDS” and “HIV” antibodies in Africa. This is not proof of heterosexual transmission of either HIV or AIDS.
Here are the last sentences in the conclusion of this review:
More rationally, one might choose to agree with those African physicians and scientists including Richard and Rosalind Chirimuuta (Chirimuuta & Chirimuuta, 1987) who believe that immunosuppression and certain symptoms and diseases which constitute African AIDS have existed in Africa since time immemorial. According to Professor P.A.K. Addy, Head of Clinical Microbiology at the University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana “Europeans and Americans came to Africa with prejudiced minds, so they are seeing what they wanted to see… I’ve known for a long time that Aids is not a crisis in Africa as the world is being made to understand. But in Africa it is very difficult to stick your neck out and say certain things.
The West came out with those frightening statistics on Aids in Africa because it was unaware of certain social and clinical conditions. In most of Africa, infectious diseases, particularly parasitic infections, are common. And there are other conditions that can easily compromise or affect one’s immune system” (Hodgkinson, 1994). In the words of Dr. Konotey-Ahulu from the Cromwell Hospital in London, “Today, because of AIDS, it seems that Africans are not allowed to die from these conditions [from which they used to die before the AIDS era] any longer. ...Why do the world’s media appear to have conspired with some scientists to become so gratuitously extravagant with the untruth?” (Konotey-Ahulu, 1987)