The article listed below is from Barnesworld at blogs.com.

Alex

http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/2006/08/how_aids_in_afr_1.html

How AIDS in Africa was Overstated.

No, that's not me pontificating, that's the Washington Post!.

This is a critical article, so grab a seat and pay attention.

Cecil Rhodes -- Englishman of colonial fame once said:

We must find new lands from which we can easily obtain raw materials and at
the same time exploit the cheap slave labor that is available from the natives of
the colonies. The colonies would also provide a dumping ground for the surplus
goods produced in our factories.

This succint statement explains centuries of tragic colonial rule of Africa --
thousands of folks enslaved, oppressed and exploited -- for the glory of
the empire.

Well, colonialism ended in the 70's -- a good thing. But, has something almost as
sinister replaced the old regime? Here comes the new boss -- same as the old boss.

Post colonialism, a lotta smart pharmaceutical executives would still love to sell
"surplus AZT goods" to the natives. And, a lotta European and American politicians
would like to accrue political capital by facilliating this massive "aid" to these
misbegotten folks. So, a convergence of interests emerges -- those African folks
have to be sick -- so we can save them with our western medicines! (and make
$$ in the process).

That's why the big push, the graphic photos, the preening, the preaching, the
moralizing about Africa. We need those folks to be sick with AIDS -- to justify
the massive "help" we wanna give. Didn't you know that 98% of these folks are
infected with deadly viruses, transmitted by freaky sexual practices and will die
tomorrow if we don't act now!? Please accept our AZT and Nevirapine. Clean
water, nutritious food and political stability  --be damned!

So, that's how it began. The horror stories of Africa, the eminent threat of massive
infection. Death, doom, destruction -- unless we act! At every opportunity,
exaggerate the threat, accentuate the misery, demand "treatment"

Of course, the Post doesn't quite get this big picture -- but they do provide a critical
piece of the scaremongering puzzle -- the systemic exaggeration of data:

KIGALI, Rwanda -- Researchers said nearly two decades ago that this tiny country  was part of an
AIDS Belt stretching across the midsection of Africa, a place so infected  with a new, incurable
disease that, in the hardest-hit places, one in three working-age adults were already doomed to die
of it.

Yup. That was the narrative. Doom and death from a pesky little virus.

But AIDS deaths on the predicted scale never arrived here, government health officials say. A new
national study illustrates why: The rate of HIV infection among Rwandans ages 15 to 49 is 3 percent,
according to the study, enough to qualify as a major health problem but not nearly the national
catastrophe once predicted.

Darn, the national catastrophe never came to pass. Rwanda may have a lotta problems -- hideous civil
war to name one. Lack of good food and clean water, to name two. But, blaming her problems on a
mysterious chimpanzee virus, unseen and undetected for centuries until the late 1980s (via Greenwich
Village and Castro), well, sorry, we didn't buy it then, and we don't buy it now.

The new data suggest the rate never reached the 30 percent estimated by some early researchers, nor
the nearly 13 percent given by the United Nations in 1998.

What a surprise.

Taken together, they raise questions about monitoring by the U.N. AIDS agency, which for years
overestimated the extent of HIV/AIDS in East and West Africa and, by a smaller margin, in southern
Africa, according to independent researchers and U.N. officials.

We need a lot more independent researchers to sift thru this mess. Garbage in, garbage out.

"What we had before, we cannot trust it," said Agnes Binagwaho, a senior Rwandan health official.

God Bless Ms. Binagwaho! She's got more common sense in her little finger, than the collective IQ of
those idiots running the UN or WHO!

Years of HIV overestimates, researchers say, flowed from the long-held assumption that the extent of
infection among pregnant women who attended prenatal clinics provided a rough proxy for the rate
among all working-age adults in a country. Working age was usually defined as 15 to 49. These rates
also were among the only nationwide data available for many years, especially in Africa, where
health tracking was generally rudimentary.

Billions of dollars spent on "overestimates" and "assumptions"?!!? Could the AIDS bunglers be any
more incompetent than they already are?

New rule: If you hear some horror stories about African AIDS, take it with a large grain of salt.
Talk to some folks who have been there. Dr. Bialy used to live and work in NIgeria. Call him.
Likewise Dr. Geshekter and Dr. Rasnick. These professionals have lived, worked, thrived, published
and integrated themselves into African life at various times in their professional careers. They
have the answers and the insights -- not these idiots at WHO or these inane journalist-stenographers
in the mainstream press (notwithstanding my new favorite paper, the Washington Post)

Bottom line: Africa has many problems -- mostly derived from the residual effects of exploitative
colonial rule. But, HIV ain't one of them. Clean water, good food -- and leave 'em alone. That would
be the best medicine.

Posted by HankBarnes on August 04, 2006 at 09:27 PM | Permalink
Comments
Mind-Boggling. You just KNOW that when all is said and done, and there is no world health emergency
over HIV that those scientists will claim that it's because they intervened quickly with their drugs
that the emergency was averted.

Posted by: Johnny B. | August 04, 2006 at 10:59 PM

Yes, Hank -- this is an excellent example of the truism in data analysis, "garbage in, garbage out."
If the initial estimates were based on poor data/observations, then the dire predictioins are going
to be garbage, indeed. Statistical analysis can never fix poor data -- and analyzing poor data only
compounds the errors.

Posted by: Mark Biernbaum | August 05, 2006 at 06:48 AM

This paragraph from the story is very important:

"The new studies show, however, that these earlier estimates were skewed in favor of young, sexually
active women in the urban areas that had prenatal clinics. Researchers now know that the HIV rate
among these women tends to be higher than among the general population."

This problem is called the problem of generalizability. You cannot collect data on the entire
African population, so you collect from a "sample" and try to generalize to the "population," but
this sample (collecting data only from women using prenatal clinics in urban areas) was so
incredibly skewed (or, more technically, was not "representative"), that there is no way it could
serve as a generalizable sample for the entire African population. In essence, the data they
collected could only be generalized to "represent" the population of women in Africa using prenatal
clinics -- that's as far as this "sample" could be "generalized." A serious flaw in data analysis --
a serious misrepresentation, which folks collecting the data had to know would be the case, if they
know anything at all about data sampling.

Posted by: Mark Biernbaum | August 05, 2006 at 07:02 AM

Johnny B,

It is mind-boggling, ain't it? It's the like medieval dragon-slayers -- gimme cauldrons of gold to
fight the dragons!

"Um, they're ain't no dragons."

"Well, that's cuz I scared them all away!"

Mark B,

Excellent statistical dissection of these idiots. You're the point man on bogus stats.

Barnes

Posted by: HankBarnes | August 05, 2006 at 10:59 AM

Hank,

Finally, the Washington Post is saying what others have said now for years. I simply want to remind
us all what people like Celia Farber were saying as early as 1993.

"Many believe that the statistics have been inflated because AIDS generates far more money in the
Third World from Western organizations than any other infectious disease.. Where there was AIDS,
there was money - a brand-new clinic, a new Mercedes parked outside, modern testing facilities,
high-paying jobs, international conferences.. A leading African physician.warned us,. 'You will
never get these doctors to tell you the truth. When they get sent to these AIDS conferences around
the world, the per diem they receive is equal to what they earn in a whole year at home.'... In
Uganda, for example, WHO [World Health Organization] allotted $6 million for a single year [for
AIDS], whereas all other infectious diseases combined - barring TB and AIDS - received a mere
$57.000." (Celia Farber, Out of Africa, Part One, Spin, March 1993, pp. 61-63, 86-87.)

And then there was Neville Hodgkinson, also in 1993.

"If you ask [an orphan] how their parents died, they will say AIDS.because it brings money and
support.. If you say your father died in a car accident, it is bad luck, but if he has died from
AIDS there is an agency to help you.. Everybody claims to be a victim of AIDS nowadays. And local
people working for the AIDS agencies have become rich. They have built homes.they have their
motorbikes, they have benefited a lot.. [AIDS] brings jobs, cars; the day there is no more AIDS, a
lot of development is going to go away.. You don't need AIDS patients to have an AIDS epidemic
nowadays, because what is wring doesn't need to be proved. Nobody checks; AIDS exits by itself."
(Neville Hodgkinson, "African AIDS Plague 'a Myth'" and "The Plague that Never Was," Sunday Times of
London, 1993)

And finally, there was Peter Duesberg in "Inventing the AIDS Virus" (1996).

"To a large extent, the myth of an African AIDS epidemic grew out of a report in the late 1980s
entitled 'Voyage des Krynen en Tanzanie.' Written by French charity workers Philippe and Evelyne
Krynen, it dramatically summarized their findings of devastated villages, abandoned homes, growing
numbers of orphans, and a sexually transmitted AIDS epidemic that threatened to depopulate the
Kagera province of northern Tanzania.. The Krynens told a story that the news media could not
resist, one that is still repeated today.. But after spending a few years working with the people of
Kagera, the Krynens changed their minds. To their disbelief, they discovered no AIDS epidemic in the
region at all.. 'There is no AIDS,' Philippe Krynen now states flatly, 'It is something that has
been invented. There are no epidemiological grounds for it.'" (Peter Duesberg, Inventing the AIDS
Virus, Regnery, Washington DC, pp. 291-292.)

All three of these people - Farber, Hodgkinson, and Duesberg - are far too polite, I'm sure, to say
"I told you so." So I'll say it for them: They told you so!

Posted by: Stephen Davis | August 05, 2006 at 12:20 PM

I just recently heard that AZT is about to go off-patent. Does this mean that GSK will suddenly
become all generous an license it at very cheap rates to generic manufacturers (given that it has
lots of high priced alternatives)? Does this also mean that GSK will start slamming AZT because of
all the bad things we already know about it in an attempt to ensure that the first world market
switches over to other AIDS drugs? While GSK continues to produce AZT at a lower (but still
substantial profit) in the first world?

Posted by: David Crowe | August 05, 2006 at 07:19 PM

It looks like the patent on azidothymidine, or AZT -- the main ingredient in GlaxoSmithKline's
antiretroviral drug Retrovir -- expired on Saturday, September 17, 2005, placing AZT in the public
domain.

Interesting fact... When the FDA first approved Retrovir in 1987, it cost up to $10,000 per person
annually. While the cost has gone down over the years, the new generic AZT was expected to cost
about $105 for an annual supply. The FDA has approved four generic forms of AZT. It certainly
doesn't look like there is any money left in producing it.

But alas...

GSK does not expect its revenue to be affected by the patent expiration because it will not affect
the price of Combivir and Trizivir, its newest drugs containing AZT, which in 2004 brought in
combined sales of $1.6 billion (Raleigh News & Observer [2], 9/18/05).

and the money continues to flow...

- Trent

Posted by: Trent | August 05, 2006 at 08:34 PM

Some reports from a few years ago on this subject that may be of use:

"Estimates on HIV called too high. New data cut rates for many nations."
By John Donnelly, Boston Globe Staff

"PRETORIA -- Estimates of the number of people with the AIDS virus have been dramatically overstated
in many countries because of errors in statistical models and a possible undetected decline in the
pandemic, according to new data
and specialists on the disease."

"In many nations, analysts are cutting the estimates of HIV prevalence by half or more."

"Several AIDS specialists said they think the current estimate of 40 million people living with the
AIDS virus worldwide is inflated by 25 percent to 50 percent, based on a wide spectrum of household
surveys in nearly a dozen countries. That would go against the grain of years of assertions by
UNAIDS that the disease is relentlessly on the rise."

"It is fundamental that we have accurate information of what we're up against," said Robert R.
Redfield, cofounder of the University of Maryland's Institute of Human Virology and a leading AIDS
specialist. "If you are overestimating the
epidemic, you may attribute positive impacts to things that have nothing to do with it."

"Statisticians traditionally have had a difficult time estimating the size of the pandemic. In 1986,
Jim Chin, then a state epidemiologist in California who later developed models for the World Health
Organization to calculate HIV prevalence, and several other US officials met in a West Virginia
hotel room to figure out how many Americans had HIV."

"Chin recollected that the group arrived at a range of 1 million to 1.5 million people; 18 years
later, the number is at about 1 million Americans. "A lot of it was guesswork, based on limited
studies," Chin said. "It was the best we could do."

"The tools today are much more refined but still based on a long list of assumptions."

"More than a decade ago, AIDS researchers in sub-Saharan Africa found that HIV tests on blood
samples from pregnant women at prenatal clinics provided a good indicator of HIV prevalence among
adults aged 15 to 49 in countries with high rates; early household surveys confirmed the finding."

"But the surveys were limited at first to a few sites in countries. "We were talking about four or
five urban sites and one or two rural sites, and extrapolating that to the whole country. You can
see what potential inaccuracies there can be with this crude methodology," said Chin, who now is an
independent AIDS analyst and criticizes UN estimates as overstated."

"Prison Official's Letter Questions HIV/AIDS Estimates in South Africa.

When will AIDS estimates be replaced by facts?

Neenyah Ostrom -- 02/25/2002

A letter to the British Medical Journal about the unexpectedly low incidence of HIV/AIDS in South
Africa's prison population has re-opened the debate about the role played by HIV in causing AIDS.
The letter's author, South African prison medical officer Stuart W. Dwyer, comments that his
experiences have led him to "partly agree with President Mbeki's skeptical view of current
statistical research into HIV infection and AIDS."(1)

In his letter, Dwyer claims that the jails are overcrowded (often as many as 30 people per cell,
according to Dwyer), and that he has observed significant homosexual activity (considered to be a
major route by which HIV and AIDS are spread) among prisoners. Dwyer claims that, despite the "large
number of HIV tests" that are performed weekly at the prison in which he works (unidentified in the
article), the facility has a very low incidence of AIDS. "This prison, which holds 550 inmates and
is always full or overfull, has an HIV infection rate of 2-4% and has had only two deaths from AIDS
in the seven years I have been working there," Dwyer writes.

South Africa is estimated by numerous organizations, including the World Health Organization and
UNAIDS, to have one of the highest incidences of AIDS of any country in the world. A recent UNAIDS
report estimates the incidence of HIV infection and AIDS among adults in South Africa to be nearly
20% (19.94% among adults, as of UNAIDS's 2000 Update).(4) In contrast, according to Dwyer, the HIV
infection incidence for all prisons in South Africa is only 2.3%. "The rate in the prison population
should be higher than that in the general population, or at least the same," he adds.

Dwyer notes that the estimates of HIV/AIDS incidence among the general population tend to be
abstracted from data collected on pregnant women, and that the HIV antibody test is notoriously
unreliable when used during pregnancy. "Pregnancy is known to cause a raised rate of false positive
results on testing for HIV infection with enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)," Dwyer writes.
"The results of such research lead to frightening statistics, giving the impression that the whole
of southern Africa will be depopulated within the next 24 months."(1) The Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS
Report, for example, reported on January 28, 2002, that "nearly one quarter [25%] of pregnant women
in South Africa are HIV positive."(2)

Dwyer appears to doubt the fact that HIV/AIDS is, in fact, so widespread in South Africa, citing a
"mystical attitude" towards it that "gives this disease recognition out of all proportion to its
incidence."

"The legal and ethical implications of this attitude ensure that no statistical research is based on
random testing of the general, normal healthy population," Dwyer concludes. "Data from this kind of
research, were anyone brave enough to conduct it, would probably show figures more like those found
in the prisons."(1)

In other words, Dwyer is suggesting that the incidence of HIV/AIDS in South Africa is closer to 2%
than 20%.

What is going on in South Africa? According to the UNAIDS web site (a collaborative effort between
eight organizations, including the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank, and five
others), 1 in 9 South Africans (11.1%) is infected with HIV and will develop AIDS. A December 2001
UNAIDS report estimates that 4.7 million individuals -- men, women, and children -- in South Africa
have HIV/AIDS.(3) Among adults, nearly 20% (19.94%) were estimated to be "living with HIV/AIDS" at
the end of 1999, according to the Epidemiological Fact Sheet on HIV/AIDS in South Africa published
by UNAIDS and the World Health Organization.(4) A more recent report from the British Broadcasting
Company (BBC) estimates that there are 5 million HIV-positive people in South Africa (11% of the
total population, according to the BBC).(5)

This is quite a contrast to the less than 1 million individuals (approximately 0.6 million) who
would be estimated to have HIV/AIDS if Dwyer's assessment of the prison incidence of the disease,
2.3%, were applied to the adult South African population of roughly 30 million (the population
estimate provided by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency).(6)

The difference between the incidence of AIDS in the general population and the prison population in
the United States appears to bear out Dwyer's argument that there is something wrong with either the
overall estimates of HIV/AIDS incidence in South Africa or estimates of its incidence in South
African prisons. The incidence of AIDS in U.S. prisons is far higher, according to the Department of
Justice's estimates, than the incidence in the general population.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the incidence of "HIV
infection" cases per 100,000 individuals was 14.4 (or 0.014%), resulting in a total of 774,467
reported cases of AIDS as of December 2000, the most recent date for which complete statistics are
available.(7)

According to U.S. Department of Justice figures (as of 1999), the incidence of "HIV infection" among
U.S. inmates is 150 times higher than the incidence of "HIV infection" in the general population, at
2.1% of all prisoners or 25,757 individuals.(8)

Let's pause for a moment and consider all these conflicting numbers. In South Africa, where the
overall incidence of "HIV/AIDS" (a recently-coined term that inexorably links the virus and the
disease, which is heavily employed by AIDS researchers discussing countries in which medical care is
hard to come by and statistics are generally estimates based on a very small amount of actual data)
is said by UNAIDS to be 1 in 9 or 11.1% in the general population.(3) Another UNAIDS/WHO report
estimates the incidence among adult South Africans to be nearly 20%,(4) and Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS
Report puts the incidence of HIV/AIDS among pregnant women at nearly 25%.(5) Simultaneously, the
incidence of HIV/AIDS is estimated at 2-4% in South African prisons,(1) considerably less than the
estimated incidence in the general population.

In the United States, conversely, the overall incidence of "HIV infection" is estimated by the CDC
to be 14.4 per 100,000 individuals or 0.0144 percent.(7) The Department of Justice estimates that
the "HIV infection" incidence in U.S. prisons is 2.1%(8), which is roughly equivalent to the South
African prison estimates. In other words, as noted above, the incidence of HIV/AIDS in U.S. prisons
is estimated to be 150 times higher than the incidence in the general population.

How can the estimated incidence of HIV/AIDS in South Africa be as high as 20% among adults in the
general population, yet as low as 2.3% among incarcerated adults, while the estimated incidence of
AIDS in the U.S. among incarcerated individuals is as much as 150 times higher than the incidence in
the general population?

How can a disease, and a disease agent, be acting so completely differently in these populations? Or
is South African President Thabo Mbeki correct in doubting the causal relationship between HIV and
AIDS?

President Mbeki continues to receive an extraordinary amount of criticism for expressing those
doubts and for refusing to allow publicly-funded hospitals to give toxic antiretroviral drugs to
pregnant women. No less than the Anglican Archibishop of South Africa, Njongonkulu Ndungane, has
labeled President Mbeki's refusal to give pregnant women AZT or nevirapine "a sin" and "immoral,"(2)
despite the side effects and birth defects associated with their use during pregnancy. National (and
international) icon former President Nelson Mandela has recently directly criticized President
Mbeki's actions, calling on the current president to "confront the issue of mother-to-child
transmission" of HIV.(5)

According to the BBC, however, President Mbeki stood firm in his February 7 speech marking the new
session of Parliament. "The president said he was committed to an intensified fight against AIDS,
but defended his policy of not making anti-retroviral drugs available to HIV-positive pregnant women
in state hospitals," the BBC reported. ". . . In the past, he has queried the link between HIV and
AIDS, and dubbed anti-retroviral drugs dangerous."(5)

In fact, President Mbeki's caution may save many women and their children from serious future health
problems -- a task that is usually the responsibility of public health officials, not politicians.
Studies are increasingly showing that AZT and 3TC, the two drugs most often used to try to prevent
mother-to-child transmission of HIV, are incorporated into both mother and child's DNA in ways that
may cause health problems, including cancers, in the future. A National Cancer Institute study in
1999 found that pregnant women taking AZT to prevent transmission of HIV to their unborn infants
incorporated the drug into their DNA, as did their infants. This finding caused the study's authors
to caution that AZT might cause further mutations that could result in the development of cancer in
both mother and child.(9)

This 1999 study, led by NCI researcher Ofelina Olivero, examined non-pregnant adults exposed to AZT,
as well as pregnant women treated with AZT and their infants (who were exposed to the drug while in
the womb). They found that 76% of all individuals given AZT incorporated it into their DNA. Olivero
and co-workers warned that AZT's presence in DNA might result in increased levels of either birth
defects or cancers.(9)

Ironically, during the same week that President Mbeki's refusal to distribute free AZT and
nevirapine to pregnant women were being denounced as a "sin" and "immoral" in South Africa by
Archbishop Ndungane, a researcher in Boston was suggesting that doctors who prescribe these drugs
for pregnant women face an ethical quandary because of their potential to cause DNA mutations
leading to cancer in both mother and child, as well as developmental defects in babies exposed in
utero.

At the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Dr. Vernon Walker,
a research scientist at the Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute (Albuquerque, NM), presented
data showing that AZT and 3TC given to pregnant women cause their babies to have twice as many DNA
mutations as infants not exposed in utero to the drugs.(10)

Walker reported that, among 68 babies not exposed to antiretroviral drugs in utero, the rate of DNA
mutation (which occurs naturally in us all) was 1.3 per one million cells. Among 71 infants whose
mothers took AZT, 3TC, or both during pregnancy, there were twice as many mutations: an average of
2.6 mutations per one million cells.

To measure potential genetic damage in another way, Walker looked at production of abnormal proteins
(which are indicative of DNA damage) in exposed and unexposed infants. Among unexposed babies, about
3% had abnormal proteins produced by damaged DNA. Infants born to women who took one or both
anti-HIV drugs, however, had a much higher incidence of damage: 9-14% showed evidence of mutated
DNA.(10)

To strengthen his data even further, Walker could examine changes in the "junk genes" of the mothers
and children, as is currently being done in studying radiation poisoning at the Semipalatinsk
nuclear test site in Kazakhstan (the former Soviet Union), where residents were exposed to decades
of radioactive fallout from testing of nuclear weapons.(11)

The data on DNA damage produced by Walker, he noted, "show that transmission of these mutations are
more than just theoretical."(10)

"We really don't know what this means as far as future problems, such as the risk of cancer," Walker
told United Press International (UPI). "However, it does indicate that warnings about future health
problems that were promulgated by the Food and Drug Administration about the use of these drugs in
pregnant women were justified," he added.(10)

Medical ethicists in the United States are beginning question whether giving these drugs to pregnant
women is a moral issue as well as a health-related one. For example, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology health ethicist Stephanie Bird told UPI that Walker's findings "indicate there is an
ethical problem in treating mothers with the [anti-HIV] drugs."

"She said damage to DNA not only can result in cancer, but might also cause heart and other
developmental abnormalities," UPI reported.(10)

Who is correct, President Mbeki and Mr. Dwyer in doubting the link between HIV and AIDS, or former
President Mandela in criticizing them for doubting? Is it "sinful" to not distribute free anti-HIV
drugs to pregnant women, as Archbishop Ndungane accuses, or is President Mbeki being prudent and
actually protecting the women and infants of South Africa? Is President Mbeki doing the job that
health agency officials are paid to do: protecting the public from drugs that can cause cancers in
children, or catastrophic birth defects as thalidomide did in the 1950s and '60s? Why is there such
disparity between the estimated HIV/AIDS incidence in South Africa's general population and its
estimated incidence in prison populations? How many people in Africa are suffering from the severe
immunosuppressive state known in South Africa as HIV/AIDS, how many are being poisoned by DDT(12)
and other environmental toxins (as the World Health Organization has documented), and what is the
true relationship between the bug and the disease?

How many more decades into the AIDS epidemic will we have to wait before public policy decisions are
based on facts and not on potentially faulty estimates of disease incidence or possibly misplaced
moral outrage?

References

1. Dwyer, S.W. "President Mbeki Might Have a Case on Rethinking AIDS." British Medical Journal
324:237; January 26, 2002.
2. Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report. "South African Anglican Archbishop Calls Government Denial of
Nevirapine to HIV-Positive Pregnant Women a 'Sin,' " January 28, 2002.
3. AIDS Epidemic Update December 2001. UNAIDS and World Health Organization, available at
www.unaids.org.
4. Epidemiological Fact Sheet on HIV/AIDS in South Africa published by UNAIDS and the World Health
Organization, available at www.unaids.org.
5. BBC News. "Mbeki Resolute on AIDS Stance," February 8, 2002.
6. Factbook: South Africa. CIA Publications, available at www.cia.gov.
7. U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Divisions of HIV/AIDS Prevention, Surveillance
Report Vol. 12, No. 2, Table 2: "AIDS cases and annual rates per 100,000 population, by area and age
group, reported through December 2000, United States." Available at www.cdc.gov.
8. U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics. "HIV Rates in Nation's Prisons Remain
Stable; AIDS-Related Deaths Among Prisoners Drop Sharply," July 8, 2001.
9. Olivero O.A., Shearer G.M., Chougnet C.A., et al. "Incorporation of Zidovudine into Leukocyte DNA
from HIV-1-positive Adults and Pregnant Women, and Cord Blood From Infants Exposed in Utero"; AIDS
13:919, May 1999.
10. United Press International. "DNA Mutations Seen in Babies of AIDS Moms," February 15, 2002.
11. Dubrova YE, Bersimbaev RI, Djansugurova LB, Tankimanova MK, Mamyrbaeva ZZh, Mustonen R, Lindholm
C, Hulten M, Salomaa S. "Nuclear Weapons Tests and Human Germline Mutation Rate." Science 2002 Feb
8;295(5557):1037.
12. Bouwman H., Becker P.J., Cooppan R.M., Reinecke A.J. "Transfer of DDT Used in Malaria Control to
Infants Via Breast Milk"; Bulletin of the World Health Organization 70(2):241, 1992.

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | August 06, 2006 at 02:04 AM

Cross blog fertilization -- This from the comments to a post at NAR today:

(link)Tryptophan Bialy (www):

Glider,

You have hit several nails on the head and simultaneously too. However, to swtich metaphors, you
neglected to throw the baby out with the dirty bath water.

As you know so well, it has been many, many moons since the "A" in "AIDS" had any meaning and that
it has been "I" for infectious since 1984. And as you also know so well, the Robin Weiss et al.
proclamation in Nature that they had discovered the receptor for "the causative agent of Aids" has
never been exposed to any serious challenge. This horrendous state of affairs has allowed for every
single experimental finding to be reinterpreted into an unassailable thought (sic) construct in
terms of a virus that puts the wiliest of Odyssean liars to everlasting shame, as your pull-quotes
show so well.

One gets so tired of saying the sky is blue and the grass is green and that AIDS without HIV quickly
dissolves into a variety of very unsexy conditions like LGS or drug-induced stupidity, or an HPV
infection that cannot be parlayed into grounds for lifelong disability income, and most importantly
into the plethora of infections that have increasingly plagued Africa since the World Bank and its
inverted development (sic) projects arrived to replace overt colonialism in the '80s.

Hank had it nailed with one golden spike yesterday when he quoted the man who renamed Mapapopa ('The
Mother of All Water Falls' in Ndembeli) Victoria for his queen and country (both puns very much
intended 'Drs'. Moore, Bennett, Smith et al.).

"We must find new lands from which we can easily obtain raw materials and at the same time exploit
the cheap slave labor that is available from the natives of the colonies. The colonies would also
provide a dumping ground for the surplus goods produced in our factories."

8.6.2006 12:00pm

Posted by: George | August 06, 2006 at 11:32 AM

Conservatives have always claimed there was no AIDS epidemic in Africa much less Pandemic. Just a
left wing ruse to get the West to transfer billions into each of the "poor afflicted" nations. You
know the old liberal axiom, [i do because i was one before i grew up] 'If lies get the help they
need and just one nation, person, animal forest insert fav cause here--would be saved then the big
lie is a good thing because t serves the greater good'...Sheese. TB and Cholera and Malaria were at
that time said to be the result of the HIV immunity probems and were therefore listed as a result of
HIV/AIDS. And It works. Hundreds of billions have been sent to Africa over the last quaarter century
to fight this bogus epidemic. Libs will do anything if it can be seen to serve the greater good, as
defined by them of course.
Dangerous path that, same one Hitler took for the greater good of germany. you guys need to crack a
history book now and then.

Posted by: garold b fox | August 06, 2006 at 12:01 PM

Isn't the current administration, the most conservative administration in decades, also the one that
has contributed the most to African "AIDS"? Sorry Gerald. I don't buy the misattribution. Anyone who
benefits from African AIDS will send money, liberal or conservative.

Posted by: Mark Biernbaum | August 06, 2006 at 12:52 PM

Hmmm doesn't everybody, especially every politician, appeal to the 'greater good' as defined by
them. I've for instance never heard the argument from Cheney or Rumsfeld (do they qualify as
conservative?) that we should invade Iraq to boost the profits of Haliburton and others. As far as I
understand, Iraq was invaded because our ideology is the 'greatest good' for everybody and should be
spread regardless of cost to the Iraqi people.
Now that sounds much more like Hitler's arguments to me.

Posted by: Claus | August 06, 2006 at 01:19 PM

Hi! Name is Garold, hope you read history better ;-) Belief in a god does not make one a
conservative, as many GOP are finding out about GW. August 3, 2001 i think, GW was the first
president to authorize fed funding for stem cell research altho the fledgling science had been
around since Jimmy Carter days. Carter's well known to have been the most religious president of the
last century, and so a likely candidate for most conservative. No accounting for delusional thought.
I digress. No this is not the most conservative presidency of even the last 5. Most of todays
admin's right wingers [cheny, rumsfield, powel, and a passle of others] for example come from GW's
dad's admin. Back in the day we referred to Reagan's admin as Raygun's Raiders: now there was a true
conservative's conservative. You may have read about Kent State, I lived just miles from that small
Ohio college. Tricky Dick Nixon actually sent troops out on our nation's youth. Gov. Rhodes ordered
them armed with deadly force, not the rubber bullets in the next locker. That admin actually had
it's own citizens shot on the spot. I am not sure who has convinced you that this is the most
conservative one in decades but the evidence shows that this is the least conserative republican one
of the last five rep Prezez. So i woud not believe much else they sling your way. Sounds like if
Reps do not send money aid to Africa they are bad. But if Reps DO send money aid to Africa they are
bad. I guess to youse guys , no matter how much closer to your views of what needs done is done
[like tripling aid to Africa], if it's done by a Republican it is bad. Do you really hold the
position that Democrats have been pushing against aid for africa while republicans have been
pushiing for greater aid to africa? And that developing poor countries into nation's that have money
of there own to spend is a bad thing?

Posted by: garold b fox | August 06, 2006 at 02:08 PM

Stop. Please. This is a thread about the continuing propagation of the racist myth of African AIDS.
"Gerold", do not attempt to turn it into a discussion of left right politics in the US, and Claus
and Mark, por favor, no mas encouragement.

Posted by: George | August 06, 2006 at 03:48 PM

Mea Culpa. Check uganda, forget rwanda's bad stats. Sorry 'jorg', just thought I'd drop some facts
into the groupthink stew. Cya.

Posted by: garold b fox | August 06, 2006 at 04:04 PM

Just wanted to add to my previous comment of those who could say "I told you so," the name of Harvey
Bialy, who of course was the first to question the African "epidemic" in a 1988 interview published
in CityWeek Magazine called "The Myth of AIDS in Africa."

For those interested, Bialy has an excellent chapter (Chapter 5)dealing with the African question in
his new book, "Oncogenes, Aneuploidy, and AIDS: A Scientific Life and Times of Peter H. Duesberg."

Posted by: Stephen Davis | August 06, 2006 at 07:03 PM

Welcome garold b fox, but please, stay on point here.

The politics of AIDS has corrupted elements of both parties: The left-wing do-gooders demand endless
$$ for gov't research, the right-wing pharmaceuticals are happy make endless $$ selling more drugs.

It's a convergence of interest.

Returning to Africa:

The numbers are garbage. Pure scaremongering designed to gin up fear.

Yes, folks are dying there -- but blaming it wholesale on a mysterious chimpanzee virus is a joke.
Like I said before: Clean water, good food and leave 'em alone.

That's the best medicine.

Hank

p.s. Welcome Dr. Maniotis! Good observations. I might have to interview you, since you are so
knowledgeable on viruses and cancer and all that good jazz.

Posted by: HankBarnes | August 06, 2006 at 09:46 PM

Agree with George. This is not about "left vs. right". It's a strange entanglement of public health,
scientific integrity, money and politics - and the "politics" easily crosses the bounds of the
stereotypical U.S. view of "left/right".

Posted by: Johnny B. | August 06, 2006 at 10:55 PM

By the way, Hank. Have you noticed that despite the ever increasing popularity of your blog, there
is virtually no "resistance" that shows their cowardly faces around here? Odd. Or maybe not.

Posted by: Johnny B. | August 06, 2006 at 10:58 PM

Dear Mr. Barnes, Mr. Davis,
Andy Maniotis here.

Thanks for the welcome, Hank, and I appreciate the correction about John Donnelly's and Neenyah
Ostrom's articles I posted, Mr. Davis. But I must tell you, I don't really believe the CDC stats any
more-they won't tell me what I should do about my "HIV-positive dog" or my student rather...Its a
long story.

At any rate, the most recent stats for the US that I have come across that I trust, are in the New
England Journal of Medicine from the past several years. It doesn't amount to 750,000, or higher, as
some claim. Instead, among "low risk" individuals in the US, it amounts to 2 or 12 out of 37
million-of course it depends whether or not you believe PCR or ELISA's. I don't trust either.

In fact, seroprevelence of "HIV" surrogate markers among either low or high-risk blood donors is not
alarmingly high.

Let us accept for a moment that the CDC, the Public Health Service, and the WHO are telling us the
truth regarding their statistical projections of the incidence and spread of "HIV," and ignore (for
a moment) the caveat statements on the test kit package inserts that warn all warn us about their
inability to be used as a stand-alone assay. In this context, "HIV" doesn't appear to be currently
exploding in the US in either "non-risk" (non-selectively tested) "risk," or "high risk"
(selectively targeted for testing) populations (such as Blacks, Hispanics, IV drug-users or illicit
drug users of any type, unsuspecting pregnant women, gay folks, or young people who had sex before
getting tested for "HIV"). For instance Stramer et. al. (Detection of HIV-1 and HCV Infections among
Antibody-Negative Blood Donors by Nucleic Acid-Amplification Testing New England Journal of
Medicine, Volume 351:760-768; August 19, Number 8, 2004):

"that among "non-risk" blood donors, the current estimate of incidence out of 37,164,054 units
screened, 12 were confirmed to be positive for HIV-1 RNA - or 1 in 3.1 million donations - and only
2 of which were detected by HIV-1 p24 antigen testing."

2 or 12 out of 37,164,054 samples, depending of course if you believe ELISAS versus PCR doesn't
constitute evidence of a major health problem among low risk folks (mostly white folks according to
the PHS, who are monogamous and believe in God and Apple Pie" to quote Jesse Helms and his
followers.

What is the incidence and prevalence in "high-risk" populations (what does the establishment say are
"high risk" populations? Persons with multiple sex partners, gay folks, African and African American
folks, Asian folks, just about anybody who 'ain't white." A recent report published in the NEJM
presented the following figures (Pilcher et al., Detection of Acute Infections during HIV Testing in
North Carolina. The New England Journal of Medicine, Volume 352:1873-1883, Number 18, May 5, 2005):

"Between November 2002 and October 2003, 110,890 persons sought publicly funded, voluntary HIV
counseling and testing in North Carolina. The study population consisted of 109,250 subjects for
whom there were complete testing data and who were classified as being at risk for HIV infection
(Figure 2). Forty-five percent of the subjects at risk were self-identified as black, 37 percent as
white, and 15 percent as Hispanic. Most subjects underwent HIV testing at sexually transmitted
disease clinics (41 percent); other testing sites included prenatal-obstetrical clinics (17
percent), family-planning clinics (16 percent), freestanding HIV testing sites (11 percent), or
jails (3 percent). Only 3 percent of subjects identified themselves as men who have sex with men,
and 2 percent reported heterosexual contact and the use of injection drugs; 33 percent of the
testing population self-identified as heterosexual, with no other risk factors."

"As detailed in Table 1, 606 new HIV infections were identified with the use of the enhanced
algorithm (prevalence, 5.5 cases per 1000 persons at risk-enhanced algorithm prevalence is when you
lump the results of two flawed test kits together to obtain a combined higher incidence so you can
arouse more fear). Of those, 583 subjects had antibody-positive established infection (prevalence,
5.3 per 1000).

We can conclude from these "HIV-testing experts" who published this report in April 2005, that even
among "high-risk" populations, out of 109,250 "high-risk subjects," they could detect 2.2 HIV
infections per 1000 person-years (95 percent confidence interval, 1.8 to 2.6), and that this new
testing procedure increases the incidence of "HIV" infection by 21% over previous enzyme-based
assays.

Its time to let our hair down a little, friends, and have some real good fun.

Cheers,

Andy

Posted by: Andrew Maniotis | August 07, 2006 at 12:30 AM

This is serious! {Bird} flu vaccines might cause AIDS!!!!!
Goes to show that Donald Rumsfeld (previous CEO of Gilliad Biosciences that was pushing Tamaflu) and
the NEMJ is on their toes as usual with the latest info!

The New England Journal of Medicine

Correspondence

Volume 354:1422-1423 March 30, 2006 Number 13

Influenza Vaccination and False Positive HIV Results

To the Editor: Six weeks after an occupational needle-stick injury, a
35-year-old man presented to a clinic in the Los Angeles area for testing to rule out acute
infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

The patient had no other risk factors for HIV infection and reported having had no symptoms
suggestive of an acute retroviral syndrome. His recent medical history was notable only for his
having received an influenza vaccination 11 days before presentation.

His test for hepatitis C antibody was negative, but an enzyme immunoassay for HIV type 1 (HIV-1) was
repeatedly reactive, and the result on a Western blot assay that was performed as part of the
clinical protocol to confirm a reactive enzyme immunoassay was indeterminate, with a single
band that was positive for glycoprotein 160 (GP160). An HIV nucleic acid amplification test was
ordered to rule out cross-reactivity caused by the influenza vaccination; the patient's viral load
was undetectable by this
method. In accordance with accepted screening algorithms,1 we thus
considered the patient to be HIV-negative with a high level of confidence.

At one month, his viral load remained undetectable (<50 copies per milliliter), and the results on
Western blotting had reverted to
nonreactive.

A case-control study2 of 101 blood donors who had been vaccinated against influenza and 191 matched
controls showed that recent inoculation with any
brand of influenza vaccine was significantly associated with a false positive screening assay for
HIV antibodies. Guidelines of both Johns Hopkins and the New York State Department of Health list
influenza vaccination as a known cause of indeterminate results on Western blotting for HIV
antibodies.3 Furthermore, digital reconstructions of both
molecules demonstrate a striking homology between the transmembrane
domains of HIV-1 envelope proteins and the influenza envelope protein
hemagglutinin, although whether this homology accounts for the false positive assay reactions is
unclear.4

The HIV GP160 protein exists only in the intracellular domain (NO KIDDING?), where it is cleaved
into GP41 and GP120 oligomers. Since GP160 itself is not present in mature HIV virions,5 GP160
proteins and antibodies against these proteins should be absent not only from the Western blot
assays but also in most cases from the serum of HIV-infected patients.

Given the escalating international awareness of various influenza strains (LIKE BIRDIE FLU), it is
very important (INDEED) to remind patients and clinicians that influenza vaccination may cause
cross-reactivity with HIV antibody assays. The time course for such cross-reactivity remains
uncertain. Moreover, if the screening algorithm for acute HIV infection had called for the use of a
nucleic acid amplification test instead of the Western blot assay to confirm the enzyme immunoassay,
the index patient would not have received an indeterminate result.

(BETTER CHECK THIS LAST CLAIM WITH STRAMER et. al.s figures I cite above (Detection of HIV-1 and HCV
Infections among Antibody-Negative Blood Donors by Nucleic Acid-Amplification Testing New England
Journal of Medicine, Volume 351:760-768; August 19, Number 8, 2004): (2/37 MILLION FIGURES, HEH)?

ARTICLE ABOVE BY:
Christian P. Erickson, M.D.
USHealthworks
Los Angeles, CA 90245
christianerickson@alumni.duke.edu

Todd McNiff, M.D., M.S.P.H.
Mount Sinai Medical Center
Miami Beach, FL 33140

Jeffrey D. Klausner, M.D., M.P.H.
San Francisco Department of Public Health
San Francisco, CA 94103