What Are We Missing About HIV/AIDS?

It is not like cynicism is running through my veins. Hardly. Nonetheless, coming to think of it, my sense of curiosity is stemming mostly from my profession. In order to be an effective “my profession”, I am required to exercise “professional skepticism”. Don’t ask me what that entails, but I hardly end up on the surface when it comes to issues. That is not to say that I am paranoid or anything like that. I am just inquisitive.

I just so happened that Ricci, one of my readers, posted this comment on one of the old posts: “Expose the AIDS fraud. Watch AIDS Inc on Youtube.com”.

Obviously, I was surprised and honored at the same time. That really made feel that this esteemed reader respects my blog enough to trust that I can bring to light some of the supposedly hidden agenda behind the global AIDS drive. Nevertheless, that sense of flattery ended sooner as I started to ponder what I could actually say. See, the truth is that I am as naïve as the next-door neighbor when it comes to some issues.

Despite my feelings of ignorance when it comes to the AIDS, I decided to pay a visit to the Youtube site and watch the video for myself. You can also check the video here.

I am not a scientist, so I cannot sit here and tell you what the guy in the video said about misinformation on AIDS is true. For one, I could have been brainwashed to believe some things about AIDS. For instance, the guy dismissed the notion that HIV is sexually transmitted. That to me is a serious dissenting comment from the mainstream belief. Secondly, I don’t have resources of my own to refute any scientific claims. So go ahead and be a judge for yourself.

I tried, however, to pick some elements from the video that I could vouch against other sources. One of the claims made in the video is a different definition of AIDS in poor countries and that applied in Western countries. In Africa, for instance, the definition of AIDS typically used is a
“Bangui Definition”.

The “Bangui Definition” was decided at a World Health Organization meeting in October, 1985. According to this definition, a patient could be diagnosed as having AIDS as long as they exhibit two of these three symptoms: prolonged fevers for a month or more, weight loss over 10 percent, or prolonged diarrhea, combined with any one of several minor symptoms -- chronically swollen lymph nodes, persistent cough for more than a month, persistent herpes, itching skin inflammation or several others.

The problem, as the Natural Health Information Center website writes, is that many of these symptoms show up from other African diseases. The bottom line is this: it is more than likely that the HIV/AIDS statistics are inflated. The inflation is first due to the visual diagnosis of AIDS under the Bangui Definition and secondly because of the money game behind HIV/AIDS.

Seriously, the number of NGOs establishments in a country has been steadily growing. Most of these NGOs are focused on three main areas – women and children development, HIV/AIDS, and youth development. We must agree that most NGOs have done a pretty good job, but some NGOs have been just personal projects to acquire easy money. Corruption and misappropriation of funds in African NGOs has happened at the expense of HIV/AIDS victims.

And these African crooks would like see the inflated number of HIV/AIDS cases to go higher and higher. Who would like to see their money pipe dry up?

Of course I am trying to ignore the fact that the most beneficiaries in the HIV/AIDS money game has been pharmaceutical companies. Honestly, what do you think is drawing a pharmaceutical company such as Abbott, based right here in Columbus, Ohio to Tanzania? I know they will cite corporate citizenship crap. Nonetheless, the agenda behind corporate citizenship is to create a social rapport for easy rip-off. Companies care more for their bottom line than anything else. A for-profit company is established to generate just that – profits.

What I find to be worth paying attention to is the inconsistency related to what is the regarded as the leading cause of death in Africa, Tanzania in particular. For instance, other sources regard HIV/AIDS as the leading cause of death in Africa, while others put malaria at the top of the list. That should raise red flags all over.

I am not an expert in these issues, but definitely something is amiss. Of course this world is full of opinions and perspectives, but some issues are worth taking a second look at. As such I think it is imperative to question the validity of HIV/AIDS statistics in Tanzania. Furthermore, it is worth to check just to see if we know everything we need to know about HIV/AIDS.

I don’t want to wake up in 2020 only to find I have been taken for a ride.

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Photo Credit: Photoshare.org