Raping Babies: Novel AIDS Cure

This is just so wrong. And, we can spend more than 87 billion dollars invading iraq, but we can't find a cure for aids?

Makes me sick.

Yes, the people doing this are terrible, but the root of this problem is aids and the hopelessness in the entire continent of Africa. Some money needs to be spent on education and bringing the people who do this to justice also.

Sad, sad, sad.

this is just UNEARTHLY and UNIMAGINABLE. what sick demons who drive such thoughts!? these people are lurkers who prey on the innocent and dont see their lives when theyre taken.

if you ask me beasts like these should be hung from the highest tree. now thats a european tradition which can solve a problem. what an impending fault this will display in their paths.

I don't understand your logic, Amythest, but here are some things to consider:

Because the AIDS diagnosis is considered a death sentence, many do not seek treatment. Almost all who do are turned away. A doctor in rural South Africa describes his frustration. He says, "We have no medicines. Many hospitals tell people, you've got AIDS, we can't help you. Go home and die." In an age of miraculous medicines, no person should have to hear those words. (Applause.)

AIDS can be prevented. Anti-retroviral drugs can extend life for many years. And the cost of those drugs has dropped from $12,000 a year to under $300 a year -- which places a tremendous possibility within our grasp. Ladies and gentlemen, seldom has history offered a greater opportunity to do so much for so many.
[...]
I ask the Congress to commit $15 billion over the next five years, including nearly $10 billion in new money, to turn the tide against AIDS in the most afflicted nations of Africa and the Caribbean. (Applause.)

This nation can lead the world in sparing innocent people from a plague of nature. And this nation is leading the world in confronting and defeating the man-made evil of international terrorism.
www.whitehouse.gov...

Some behavior patterns in Africa may also be affecting the epidemic. In explaining the fact that young women are infected at a higher rate
than young men, Peter Piot, the Executive Director UNAIDS, has commented that �the unavoidable conclusion is that girls are getting
infected not by boys but by older men,� who are more likely than young men to carry the disease. (UNAIDS press release, September 14, 1999.)
UNAIDS notes that ��with the downward trend of many African economies ... relationships with (older) men can serve as vital opportunities for financial and social security, or for satisfying
material aspirations.� (AIDS Epidemic Update,2002). Many believe that the infection rate among women generally would be far lower if
women�s rights were more widely respected in Africa and if women exercised more power in political and economic affairs. (For more on
these issues, see Helen Epstein, �AIDS: the Lesson of Uganda,� New York Review of Books, July 5, 2001; and �The Hidden Cause of AIDS,� New York Review of Books, May 9, 2002.)The breakdown in social order and social norms caused by armed conflict is also contributing to the African epidemic.

Conflict is typically accompanied by numerous incidents of violence against women, including rape, carried out by soldiers and guerrillas. Such men are also more likely to resort to commercial sex workers than those living in a settled environment.

Many observers believe that the spread of AIDS in Africa could have been slowed if African leaders had been more engaged and outspoken in earlier stages of the epidemic. President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa has come in for particular criticism on this score.

In April 2000, President Mbeki wrote then President Clinton and other heads of state defending dissident scientists who maintain that AIDS is not caused by the HIV virus. In March 2001, Mbeki rejected appeals that the national assembly declare the AIDS pandemic a national emergency, and in September of that year, the South African government attempted to delay publication of a South African Medical Research Council report, which found AIDS to be the leading cause of death, accounting for 40% of mortality among South Africans aged 15 to 49. The Council predicted that South Africa�s death toll from AIDS would reach a cumulative total of between 5 and 7 million by 2010, when 780,000 people would be dying annually from the disease. Life expectancy would fall from 54 years at present to 41 by the end of the decade, according to the Council.
fpc.state.gov...

He pointed out that the United States will this year spend $2.4 billion, nearly twice as much to fight AIDS as the rest of the world's donor governments combined.

With such massive spending, there's no need to contribute additional money to the U.N.-sponsored Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, he said. The $200 million that President Bush already plans to contribute next year is sufficient, he said in an interview later with The Associated Press and Reuters news agency.
abcnews.go.com...

"So many years after independence, African leaders still expect the world . . . to clean their mess � the Darfur crisis is a case in point."

As British author Robert Guest points out in his new book The Shackled Continent, African leaders have shown a willingness to flout the law for their own gain largely because they are unrestrained by institutional checks and balances.

The social and economic cost of such indulgences becomes all the greater when you consider that the AIDS pandemic is devastating the new, younger generation of Africans from which future leaders will be drawn. An astonishing 30 million people living south of the Sahara now have AIDS or HIV. One African adult in 11 has HIV and last year 2.2 million Africans died of the disease.

Average life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa has slumped to 46.3 years but is much lower in AIDS-ravaged nations such as Zambia where the average newborn can expect to live only 32.7 years.

Although some countries, such an Uganda, have managed to reduce infection rates due to education programs and condom distribution, others � including relatively affluent South Africa � have lived in denial.

South Africa has the highest number of HIV cases in the world, yet until recently President Thabo Mbeki insisted HIV did not cause AIDS.
www.theaustralian.news.com.au...

Crucell and AIDS Vaccine Initiative have signed an exclusive license agreement to develop an AIDS vaccine

Given this worldwide threat, why can't scientists produce a magic-bullet vaccine? Smallpox, polio, measles and yellow fever are largely eradicated, thanks to drugs that prevent infection. Why haven't medical research, political pressure and government support produced a preventive for AIDS?

There is no simple answer. But asking the question has provoked a debate in the AIDS world about how best to spend scarce dollars and resources on a runaway epidemic.

To scientists, AIDS is the virus from hell. It constantly mutates, slipping away from a basic blueprint needed by vaccine designers. Researchers have tried numerous approaches, first tapping antibodies that make up other vaccines and then trying to rev up the body's cellular system.

There are 22 candidate vaccines now in human trials, but none promises a huge breakthrough. One recent drug trial in Kenya is typical: After six years of work, a promising vaccine was effective in only 20 percent of the cases. Unless the numbers improve in further tests, its backers may dump the trial.
www.sfgate.com.../chronicle/archive/2004/09/13/EDGIJ7P1JI1.DTL

Targeted Genetics completes enrollment in AIDS vaccine test

Aids Vaccine Trials Flop

International AIDS Vaccine Initiative abandons lead vaccine candidate, citing poor responses

HIV exists as two strains�HIV-1, which dominates the epidemic, and HIV-2, which is largely confined to West Africa. So far, at least ten different patterns of HIV-1 infection have been identified. These patterns reflect particular geographic and genetic profiles of viral spread. For example, HIV-1 subtype B (there are nine genetic subtypes) is the common form of the virus in North America and Western Europe. India, by contrast, is under threat from HIV-1 subtype C. In Africa, where some two thirds of those with HIV now live (about 25 million people) and where there were three million new infections in 2003 alone, the situation is more diverse. Southern and eastern regions of the continent face a predominantly HIV-1 subtype C epidemic. Central Africa sees a highly mixed picture�HIV-1 subtypes A, D, F, G, H, J, and K. The implications of these differences for vaccine development remain uncertain. The best guess is that the genetic complexity of HIV will influence the effectiveness of any tested vaccine.

There are also over a dozen virus variants, called circulating recombinant forms, whose genomes have a structure that lies in between those of known subtypes. They also contribute to the difficulty of creating a one-size-fits-all vaccine. At present, scientists do not know if each subtype and every variant will need its own specific vaccine. It may well be that they will.

Worse still, a given subtype of the virus does not stay the same. HIV is continually evolving. The ingenuity of the virus in adapting to prevailing pressures in its environment�such as the existence of a vaccine that triggers an attempt by the human body to eradicate it�is owing to an enzyme called reverse transcriptase. This enzyme is essential for viral replication but it makes mistakes as it goes about its work. These mistakes, together with an extremely high rate of virus production, help HIV to produce an enormous family of genetically varied offspring.
www.nybooks.com...

Fighting a pandemic

A US biotechnology company has been giving details of a vaccine against Aids, which it hopes could be available by 2005, to delegates attending the International Aids Conference in Barcelona.

I think we will get protection [from the virus], but I don't know what level we'll get

The head of VaxGen, Donald Francis, said the vaccine worked on chimpanzees and he was optimistic about the results of trials on humans, due to be published next year.
news.bbc.co.uk...

Economics of AIDS Vaccines






[edit on 04/9/20 by GradyPhilpott]

How does one stop this sick epidemic of behavior when the presdient of that country wants to logic away any abhorrent behavior as the continued apartheid thought of white citizens.

"President Thabo Mbeki has launched a virulent attack on white attitudes towards crime in South Africa which turned good news into bad news and turned black men into rapists. please read the whole article its very telling - so many atrocities around the world have been supported by articles by "experts". The whole AIDS/HIV controversy which has turned South Africa into the hotspot of the pandemic, and the laughing stock of the scientific world, which was based on the opinions of an "expert" that said that AIDS and HIV were not the same thing, and that HIV did not necessarily lead to AIDS. South Africa's president is the only leader in the world who propagated this theory and acted accordingly.

He has also slammed for the second time a journalist for what he views as her racial stereotyping of sexual violence.

The president - in a column under the headline "when is good news bad news?" - said the recent release of crime statistics by the South African Police Service had indicated a decrease in the incidence of murder, rape and aggravated robbery including cash-in-transit robberies since democracy in 1994."

www.bday.co.za...
html

In the 60s there was a politician in South Africa that said " Now save a nation, with people like this"

This is the correct link to the article mentioned in the above post:

www.bday.co.za...

Originally posted by AmethystWolf
This is just so wrong. And, we can spend more than 87 billion dollars invading iraq, but we can't find a cure for aids?

Makes me sick.

Your making it sound like its Americas job to find a cure for AIDS. What about Europe, Japan,really any other modern country why cant they cure it? America probably spends more then any other country trying to find a cure and stop the spread of AIDS in Africa. There might not even be a cure for it you cant just throw 100 billion at it and expect a cure.

Aids is preventable and we do send condoms to Africa. But because of society issuses or whatever they dont use them. What are we suppose to do put the condoms on for them?

This is one issue where I heartily disagree with Bush. We should not spend a red cent of the public money on the AIDS epidemic in Africa. We might as well burn that money on the White House lawn, for all the good it will do in Africa.

This is the sickest # I have ever heard of.

There is NO excuse for those animals behavior, and as for serving 6 months to a year and a half you got to be kidding.

I would personaly shot every one of them

Whoops

I meant to quote and hit the wrong button

Sorry

I was just gonna say I guess my GED was showing

[edit on 2-10-2004 by Amuk]

It sounds like South Africa are "evolving" back to the caveman days. With all the violence and AIDS, I wonder, what is population growth (current and projected) like over there? Surely with so many AIDS infected people, and so much murdering going on if they're population isn't on the decline now surely it is going to start dropping drastically soon as all the AIDS victims (and some are not exactly victims per se...ie rapists etc) start dying off?

It sounds like they are using & abusing themselves into extinction over there

This Is Truly Disgusting

You guys have to remember, these people don't know any different.

There is no excuse

I would personaly shot every one of them

You and me both, when are we leaving

Well I don't think it can get any cheaper than a single bullet to the head. Its hard for me to get evil thoughts of what I would like to do to these bastards out of my head. But they might as well be demons. And if they are demons then the most creative way to send them back to hell would be to tie a heavy rock to their feet, stab them in the stomach and dump them off the shark infested waters off the coast of South Africa. There are Great Whites out there that can easily bite a man in half.

i heard about this last year. this is old news. unfortunatly it doesnt soften the extreeme disgust i have for the whole situation. There is only so much a person can do to educate these people. We can send people over to help with education, we can bring more funding, but in the end i think this isnt going to stop happening because some people just dont have the intellect to understand. What should we do about those people i guess is the question?
and it isnt americans job to fight aids all around the world..other countries could help ya know...including africa..i mean it is there problem. anytime we have a problem here all the other coutries are like "well thats americas problem" Not that i think we shouldnt help...im just saying..
We have aids here in america too. and we need to get a better handle on that as well. Aids is preventable. and if it werent for the stupid idiotic, and selfish choices of others we wouldnt be in this mess in the first place. Granted some people have gotten aids through transfucions children have been born with it. but that ISNT the majority of the cause anymore and we all know it. Its people sharing needles, and having promiscuious unprotected sex. and those things are by there own admissions/actions. Shoving money at countries that dont seem to get the simple concept of ..if your gonna do it...put on a rain jacket, and go get tested if you have been with more than one person.....isnt gonna work unfourtunatly. So the question remains the same...what do you do with the people that are contaminated and continue to have a blatent disregard for others and spread the disease?

Kind Regards,
Digital Grl

[edit on 10/01/2004 by DigitalGrl]

[edit on 10/01/2004 by DigitalGrl]

I don't think anyone will dispute that the actions here are heinous, reprehensible and completely inhumane. There's no excuse, and it cannot be condoned - EVER.

However...

Shooting "them", letting "them" die of AIDS without treatment, etc etc, is also inhumane. That is NOT how you change a society - that's how you remind a society that their ways are better than "the white guys who come in and tell us what to do, shooting us if we disobey". Hardly a good way to educate the masses.

There's a disturbing trend to refer to such cultures in an "us" versus "them" manner - this again only leads to problems. If we're to try and combat such practices, we first have to concede that we are all human beings - even if we disagree strongly with cultural practices. Once we dehumanize any race or culture, we're pretty much telling them that they'll never be considered "human enough" for our liking. The concept that "they don't know any better" only serves to reinforce the belief that "we" are somehow more deserving of consideration, money, treatment etc.

How on earth do you expect to solve this problem? Don't get me wrong - I fully understand the anger and disgust. I share those sentiments, but if you want to look at it in those terms, consider this:

We DO know better. We have no excuse, therefore, to act as inhumane animals by refusing treatment if such is available...because we believe ourselves to be better.

Out of interest...exactly whose problem is AIDS? Exactly how do we expect a nation mired in poverty and disease to come up with enough money for their own medical research? If the situation was reversed, we'd be equally desperate for help, and we'd be equally appalled if such were denied to us based upon a richer nation deciding we're undeserving because of our cultural practices.

We seem to be deciding that X nation is undeserving, but Y nation might be deserving of help. There are already many nations around the globe who are trying to find a cure. But we'd be a tragic, inhumane society if we continued to judge who is deserving of treatment, and who isn't.

And that won't solve a damn thing.

I'm not sure what would solve things....education and better control of where aid money is spent might be a good start though; you can't expect people to change if you continue to consider them less than human.

Its just wrong. It is promoting phaedophile acts. In Kenya the myth is to get rid of AIDS rape a young virgin teenager. Where do they get these from? They are wrong!

I am sorry but anyone that finds it acceptable to assault a child like this is just not mentally stable. There are millions of people with HIV/AIDS and that does not necessarily make them bad people or insane thus I would suspect that people that resort to this type of violent behavior have a lot more wrong with them than an illness. Prayers to the children.

I don't condone any actions. I think that what they do is completely wrong.

BUT, having said that, I do have to agree that behavior is dictated by society. 40 years ago, it was acceptable to beat your child to death. If it happened, it was no ones business but the family. When my mother tried to go to social services to help her younger siblings, she was told "Mind your own damn buisness." An exact quote that still haunts her today. She tried to stop the abuse in her own family by her own father.

Today it is front page news. The abuse that happened then, is now an issue. Society has to evolve. When you mix the ignorance, a regressed society with desperation and dispair, you get extreme actions. "Desperate times call for Desperate measures" a phrase I am sure most people are familiar with. Those measures aren't always positive. People living in a hopeless situation will cling to any thread of hope they can find.

Our society puts a high value on a child's life. Many societies feel that a child is nothing more than a possession until they come of age. Its value is nothing more, nothing less than of the plates they eat off. They can do with it what they wish. It doesn't make it the "right" way to think, it is just a societal norm.

I think it is very disgraceful, and I agree that they don't know any better but there is no human, I don't care where you from that would not udnerstand that in many ways babies, and young children are sacred beings. You don't harm children in any way shape or form, and nmo matter where you come from you shoudl knwo that.

I was in SA in 2000 and the AIDS rate was at 50%. Quite staggering. Would have only gone up since then i am sure.

Originally posted by Disaster_Boy
I think it is very disgraceful, and I agree that they don't know any better but there is no human, I don't care where you from that would not udnerstand that in many ways babies, and young children are sacred beings. You don't harm children in any way shape or form, and nmo matter where you come from you shoudl knwo that.

I was in SA in 2000 and the AIDS rate was at 50%. Quite staggering. Would have only gone up since then i am sure.

If certain religious groups weren't so intent on telling certain native populations that birth control was such a bad, bad thing, we might not have such a high rate of AIDS in those countries.

Which might just come in handy when we're trying to pursuade those natives that "our" methods of curing/helping AIDS are better than theirs.

It's pointless to say that "no matter where you come from...babies are sacred...". Obviously that's not a belief held by everyone in the world. To many, children have little value at all until they grow to become wage-earners, or are capable of helping to support the community in other ways; just because we might consider something to be held sacred, doesn't mean that everyone else does. To assume so is not just naive - it's potentially dangerous thinking. It's applying reasoning that simply might not exist outside of our own four walls, so to speak.

Think of it from perhaps their point of view.

A man with AIDS will no longer be able to work, hunt, or otherwise "produce" for his family. He's vital to the wellbeing (such as it is) of his community. If he dies - his family stand a much higher chance of dying too.

A baby has no "value" in this context, other than emotional. It can't earn, it can't hunt, it can't do anything other, really, than soak up limited resources. To that man with AIDS, and indeed perhaps his entire community, the choice might not be difficult. If there's a chance a cure can be found (and thus, his family might stand a chance of survival) in such an act*, there's no choice at all. It's a doozy.

Again, not everyone sees things the same way as you or I.

* - I'm hoping it's not necessary to point this out, but I'll do so anyway. This is merely an example given to show what may be behind what is such an alien concept to most of us. Nobody is condoning such acts, and nobody is condoning acceptance of such acts - but if we at least try to understand the reasoning behind it, we stand a much better chance of solving the problem.

Originally posted by Disaster_Boy
there is no human, I don't care where you from that would not understand that in many ways babies, and young children are sacred beings.

Well, I think that is the point that is being made. Many areas of the world DON'T view babies as sacred. They aren't people at all, they are possesions.

You don't harm children in any way shape or form, and no matter where you come from you should know that.

And less than 40 years ago in our own country it was no big deal to beat your kids, even if the kid was an infant. And most African countries are more than 40 years behind the US in social and cultural development.