"To an extent that undermines classical standards of science,” the late Serge Lang, a renowned Yale professor, wrote in a letter to the Council of the National Academy of Sciences, “the scientific establishment has handled purported scientific results concerning AIDS by press release rather than by scientific exchange, thereby manipulating the media at large."

Among the alarming developments in the AIDS era is the dilution of the message “Breast is best” to "It’s a woman’s choice in the case of HIV infection." If there were any scientific base pointing to an imperative for babies of mothers who have tested HIV-antibody-positive needing to be formula fed, I could understand. But there isn’t. The fact is that even where their own studies show no advantage in formula feeding, scientists have advocated it.

After two weeks in the country’s largest conservation area, Kruger National Park, the return to the real world is bitter. Fourteen days without radio, newspapers, television, telephone — and it’s pure torture catching up on the vanities I never once missed.

"Education is our only HIV vaccine.”
"Aspen to focus on AIDS drugs market across 15 countries.”
"Alarming findings in new HIV study.”
"The tentacles of AIDS reach far and wide."

On the night of the presidential election last November, I went to a few events and taverns here in New York to eavesdrop and collect impressions. To rattle people’s expectations — and counter the sea of glum, despairing faces I knew I would encounter at midnight — I wore a knee-length, silver-sequined Carolina Hererra waistcoat, (a gift from a friend whose journalism career has been much more lucrative than mine) and a straw cowboy hat.

"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge — even to ourselves — that we’ve been so credulous"
Carl Sagan

LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA

Eight days of lolling on the sun-washed beaches of the island paradise of Mauritius was the best kind of medicine. The return to reality this week has been a most depressing experience.

There has been a spate of articles and radio interviews on a looming flu epidemic coming soon to our neck of the woods – “A flu to wipe out humanity is not science fiction”(1), “Avian flu kill up to 5 million”(2); “Avian flu: prepare, don’t panic” (3). All quoting only one source - director of South Africa’s National Institute of Communicable Diseases, Dr Barry Schoub.

The sixth anniversary of becoming involved in the Great AIDS Debate looms for me so I’ve been delving into files of six years ago to see which if any of the predictions at the time have come true, and what AIDS Inc devotees said back then. These are highlights - or lowlights, which ever you prefer:

Numbers game

(Statistics must be compared to the reality of a more than 10% population growth in South Africa (SA) over the past five years - from 41.3 million to 46.3 million by 2004. Also, according to the  Statistics SA report released last month (refer to my previous Letter from South Africa), 7000 to 10000 deaths from HIV and AIDS a year according to death certificates from 1997 to 2002.)

You’ve got to hand it to the PR’s of UNAIDS who always come up with a new angle to keep HIV/AIDS in the headlines. The latest is the release of a book, "AIDS in Africa: Three scenarios to 2025", which lays it all out - 80 million African lives threatened by 2025, a further 90 million infected by then - unless the world takes the high road of massively more of the same kind of things that haven’t worked so far.(1)

LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA

Statistics dominated the headlines on the Great Aids Debate in the past week due to the release of  the Mortality and Causes of Deaths in South Africa 1997 - 2002 by Statistics SA (1)

Key findings of the report based on information from 2,88 million death certificates classified according to the World Health Organisation’s International Classification of Diseases, revision 10 (ICD-10) were:

by David Rasnick and Christian Fiala

ABSTRACT

These days, a presentation of the arguments and evidence against the contagious/HIV hypothesis of AIDS is usually interrupted with the supposedly show-stopping question—“But, what about Africa?” A variant: “But—aren’t people living longer because of the drugs? The virus-AIDS hypothesis was burdened from its inception with numerous paradoxes, none of which has been resolved by 2003:

The definition of a "fanatic", according to the American Heritage Dictionary, is "a person marked or motivated by an extreme, unreasoning enthusiasm, as for a cause." A definition of "faith" in the same dictionary is "belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence".

When do promoters of a cause cross the line from being dedicated to fanatical? When do their methods move from being based on reason to being based on faith?

SELLING THE MOTHER OF ALL DISEASES

LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA

The biggest international health event last week was the release of the latest UNAIDS report on the global HIV epidemic.

The organization’s CEO, Dr. Peter Piot, said the world was gripped by what was "undeniably the deadliest epidemic in history". (1) This may be a case of many a true pun said in jest, because what Piot is asking us to believe in is a 100% fatal germ that never runs out of new victims and causes a disease which has been so defined as to make it impossible to be cured.