AIDS - THE UNSPOKEN TRUTH
Two thirds of people with AIDS are Africans. Why? Here's an interesting article by Epidemiologist Elizabeth Pisani that dares to say that which many liberals refuse to..
HIV is largely a sexually transmitted infection, so there must be something different about sex in Africa. Yet you can’t say that without appearing to be racist. So campaigners have come up with other reasons that HIV is worse in Africa: poverty, ignorance, men having more power than women. All politically correct, but not epidemiologically correct.
The truth is that a society in which many people have two or three partners on the go at any one time will produce a bigger epidemic than a society where people may have 10 partners in five years, but only one at a time. And it’s a fact that in parts of Africa, it’s more common for both men and women to have two or three simultaneous relationships than to have serial partners. Do people behave in this way because they are poor and ignorant? Not in Bangladesh, or Bolivia, or dozens of other countries where incomes and literacy are low. Indeed, in Africa, the incidence of HIV infection is highest in the richest households and the richest countries.
In east Africa, HIV spread first among people who had lots of partners – in other words, men and women who traded sex for money or favours. Had condom use in commercial sex been pushed to very high levels at the time – as happened in Thailand – the epidemic would have been contained.
But most African leaders play the Three Monkeys.
David Vance
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Reader Comments (10)
If she is right I suppose the next question is "so what?" Having identified what she believes to be the factor which causes the epidemic to be greater in that continent than others, what does she propose be done next?
I tried to read her website but I kept laughing at the 1940's style photo she had of herself on it. No lab coat scientist she.
First she comes out with the startling announcement that "there must be something different about sex in Africa" and then, just after arousing our curiosity about what this may be, she disappoints with the limp observation about Africans having more sexual partners at the same time! Well, thanks, David, for this new insight. Epidemiology must be a wonderful science indeed!
Also, it's by no means clear why "a society in which many people have two or three partners on the go at any one time will produce a bigger epidemic than a society where people may have 10 partners in five years, but only one at a time." Maybe she knows something about HIV transmission that the rest of us don't, but if she does, she's sure keeping it to herself.
I've just read a review of her book in The Sunday Times: The Wisdom of Whores: Bureaucrats, Brothels and the Business of AIDS.
There's a lot more to this woman than that short quote above.
David, is there a link to the article that you are quoting from?
Noel, there is a review her book in the Economist which addresses the question you raise. Quoting from the review:
"If serial monogamy is the norm, even if individuals have many partners over time, the virus is trapped within relationships and gets around slowly"
Also it notes that carriers are most infectious shortly after being infected which amplifies the effect.
When HIV first raised its ugly head I attended a lecture (my profession being biomedical science) by one of the new experts in the field. I was struck by two factors that he stressed at that time, a) that it was a common practice for a visitor to a village in Southern Africa to be provided with a women of the village to keep his blankets warm and that b) the most common form of contraception in use in the region was anal intercourse. Both these factors were of great importance in the spread of HIV but, as I recall, this information was not widely disseminated. The concept of safe sex, however, was. Safe sex being equated with wear a condom and carry on as normal.
I was always struck, and still am, by the fact that HIV was never treated like other infectious diseases where quarantine, contact tracing, behaviour modification come into play. This may be because of the sheer number of cases in certain parts of the world but I suspect it is more to do with the association of HIV with certain homosexual practices. Political correctness trumps all other factors.
The HIV virus transmits by far the most easily via direct contact with the bloodstream (rather than via contact between other bodily fluids), so anal sex has always been the primary reason why (leaving aside needle users, and thinking of sexual transmission alone) AIDS has always been mainly confined to homosexuals in the West, while in Africa it has affected both straight and gay people in more equal measures.
Mind you, it's fair to say that poverty has played a part too. Where personal hygiene products are in short supply, and minor infections of the sex organs are not as well treated/prevented as they are here, then the virus has a higher rate of direct contact with the bloodstream during straight sex.
Tom,
Sheesh! Looks like my bareback days are over :0(
I won't ask. Please don't tell.
XD
Peter T
Hmm.Was just beginning to plot this year's vacation -- am the king of procrastinators -- and you may have "grossed me out" as we say on southern Africa for yet another year.
Believe that method of contraception may be in use in some of the fine Arab countries as well. Ah, well.