Ending AIDS in Africa

[JesusA (imported)]

Below is an interesting piece from this morning’s edition of The East African, the leading business-oriented newspaper in East Africa. The editorial writer suggests that the “traditional” way to end AIDS would be to select a few healthy men to sire the next generation and castrate the rest…..

Here’s how our ancestors

would have ‘ended’ Aids

By CHARLES ONYANGO-OBBO

The East African (Nairobi, Kenya)

Wednesday, February 11 2009

http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/-/ ... index.html

The news coming out of Kenya and Uganda about HIV/Aids is similar – very bad.

In both countries (and we suspect other African nations) the figures are showing that HIV/Aids infections are highest among married couples, the group that everyone thought was least at risk.

Marriage has been touted as one way of reducing the risk of being infected with HIV/Aids. Now it turns out marriage might, actually, be a death sentence.

The idea that marriage was partially Aids-proof came from the belief that it was more likely to encourage couples to be faithful.

Apart from being urged to be faithful, Aids information campaigns offered married people little else. You could not ask them to use condoms, because it was both against God’s wish, and nonsensical. Marriage, after all, is the institution where children are born ‘‘legally’’.

This mess exposes a fundamental prejudice of the middle classes and ‘‘Establishment’’.

First, a class bias led us to believe that prostitutes were major vehicles for the transmission of HIV.

Secondly, we have a patronising attitude that considers young people stupid and ignorant about what is good for them.

A lot of money was therefore spent blanketing ‘‘high-risk’’ groups with Aids safety messages. Now it turns out, it was the good married people who needed the messages most.

However, Aids has also exposed something else that would trouble our ancestors.

We are simply unable to adapt.

Consider how, for example, monogamy arose.

The Marxists argue that monogamy came with the rise of property, and was entrenched by the development of capitalism.

It ceased to be practical for propertied men in western society to have many wives and dozens of children.

When they died, there would be a fight over their property.

The property would get destroyed or sub-divided into so many small bits, it would become worthless.

And the fight over property would create new enemies within families and clans.

Therefore to growth wealth, and bring peace by stopping property wars, monogamy was decreed.

That way, it became clear that one woman and her children were the ones to inherit property.

Monogamy, or the control of men’s sexual freedom and reproductive licence, therefore, played an important role in the growth of capitalism.

Consider a more basic but powerful example in Africa; the relationship between the son-in-law and his mother-in-law, or the daughter-in-law and her father-in-law.

Some scholars have suggested that ages ago, marriage in Africa did not establish clear lines.

Thus when a man’s wife was indisposed, her mother would step in to fill the wifely duties.

Among some communities in Uganda, the reverse also happened.

When the son went off to war, his father moved into his house and became the temporary husband.

It would seem some mothers refused to give up their daughters’ husbands, or some fathers might have stolen their sons’ wives.

It would seem daughters and their mothers, and sons and their fathers went to war.

The elders came up with a solution – the concept of in-law was established, and they became taboo.

In many parts of Africa today, when a son-in-law is walking along the village path and he sees his mother-in-law approaching from the opposite direction, he is supposed to flee and hide at least 100 metres in the bush until she has passed.

A son-in-law who accidentally glimpses the nakedness of his mother-in-law is supposed to become blind or run mad.

With these clever rules and myths, our ancestors restored order among relatives and in society.

Today, Aids has been with us for over 20 years and there are no new cultural rules or taboos that we have come up with to save us, except condoms, and abstinence for unmarried people.

What would the ancients have done if they had been faced with HIV/Aids?

Those were not enlightened times, so they might not have come up with a politically correct solution, but they would have taken some fairly radical steps.

They would have banned marriage (and other relationships), because they would realise that it lulls people into a false sense of security about HIV.

Then they would have selected a few fine men and women, who are HIV free, and issued them with ‘‘permit’’ to produce children for the rest of the society, and castrated the rest of the men.

The Elders’ Council would then have allocated the children to each household according to its needs.

Then they would have waited until the threat of HIV/Aids had passed, before allowing society to go back to business as usual.

cobbo@nation.co.ke

[mrt (imported)]

Hi Jesus:

Its called Eugenics (Selective human breeding) and its one of the great horrors of the 20th Century. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics

I think AIDs is one of the great horrors of our time. And the ineffective way we are dealing with it the great stupidity of our era.

Where are the great minds of our time? and why are we not solving this? Trying to "cure" a virus which has never happened yet is a fine direction to explore but what about other solutions?

[JesusA (imported)]

While this “proposal” is certainly incredibly draconian, and I would be strongly opposed to it, we also need to remember that differential rates of reproduction are part of the entire universe of living beings. A perfectly even rate of reproduction would mean that every single individual of every species would produce exactly 2.000 offspring that would survive long enough to produce 2.000 offspring who survive to reproduce, etc. It doesn’t happen.

Among humans, there are many factors that lead to individual differences – some benign, some malign.

Some individuals choose NOT to reproduce. Catholic nuns and priests are two categories where this is culturally accepted. Many others also choose not to. Some individuals who carry serious genetic disorders, such as Huntington Disease or Tay-Sachs Disease, are counseled to adopt, rather than have biological offspring. Some individuals who live to maturity are not able to reproduce for a wide variety of reasons. Some are forced to not reproduce, such as harem eunuchs over four millennia. Several of my Black friends have stated that the incarceration for most of their reproductive life-span of so many Black males in America is also a form of eugenics.

At the other end of the reproductive scale, we have women such as Nadya Suleman, who recently gave birth to octuplets, already having six small children. The modern world record for most prolific mother is held by Leontina Albina from San Antonio, Chile. Now in her mid-sixties, she claims to be the mother of 64 children. Of these, 55 are documented, birth certificates apparently being something of a less-than-serious concern in Chile.

The most prolific father of all time is believed to be Moulay Ismail Ibn Sharif, Emperor of Morocco (1645-1727, reigned 1672-1727). By 1703 he had at least 342 daughters and 525 sons. Moulay Ismail is alleged to have fathered 888 children before his death. It is thought that Ismail would have had to copulate with an average of 1.2 women per day for over 60 years to achieve that number of children. He had an extensive harem, supervised by eunuchs so that the emperor was the only fertile male allowed into that section of his palace.

[A-1 (imported)]

...and of course, HE would be chief of the selected few, right?

GAWD. Some people are SOOOO simple-minded...

Eugenics, indeed.

That idiot would lower the average I.Q. in Africa at LEAST 20 points...

:shakemitk

[IbPervert (imported)]

I once read a true book about a man raised in the JuJu religion of Africa. This man said that the modern day Voodoo religion is a branch of JuJu. Anyways, he was selected to go to collage and learn, so that he could write down the stories of the religion. In the book he talked about whole villages that died of a strange wasting disease. He also talked about how if you wore a mask to represent one of deities you were no longer in control...this meant that you could go out and have as much sex as you want but when you took the mask off you would still be a virgin (assuming you started as one.) He also talked about how they would have sex with animals and drink raw animal blood. For the record he became a christian and decided to write down his story. The point being that AIDS as been around Africa for a long time, and it took modern day travel to spread it to the world. Also, even castrating everyone and doing selective breading would not stop it because it can still be spread through other methods.

(putting Eugenics aside)

One example would is that even a eunuch can still shoot blanks and those blanks would still carry the AIDS virus!! This means that there is only four methods to control the spread of AIDS....

1) abstinence

2) safe sex

3) put a infected person in a concentration camp...this means a faster method of detection would be needed and more often.

4) Kill them. however, even after death a person can spread STD's

[Togadong (imported)]

One example would is that even a eunuch can still shoot blanks and those blanks would still carry the AIDS virus!! This means that there is only four methods to control the spread of AIDS....

1) abstinence

2) safe sex

3) put a infected person in a concentration camp...this means a faster method of detection would be needed and more often.

4) Kill them. however, even after death a person can spread STD's

I know that a virus doesn't require nutrients or energy to survive, so it might be able to stay in a lifeless environment for as long as it takes to infect another person, but STDs are called STDs because they are not very infectious; only an exchange of bodily fluids can usually transmit it. I don't even want to think of how people might be exposed to the bodily fluids of a dead person.

Since we're listing all possible solutions up to and including murder, I'm surprised that penectomy wasn't mentioned. You could still transmit through blood, but the infection rate would surely plummet.

[chilliwilli (imported)]

I know that a virus doesn't require nutrients or energy to survive, so it might be able to stay in a lifeless environment for as long as it takes to infect another person, but STDs are called STDs because they are not very infectious; only an exchange of bodily fluids can usually transmit it. I don't even want to think of how people might be exposed to the bodily fluids of a dead person.

Since we're listing all possible solutions up to and including murder, I'm surprised that penectomy wasn't mentioned. You could still transmit through blood, but the infection rate would surely plummet.

Ending AIDS? The best place to start is you own ass!

The AIDS virus is not very hardy, it will not survive out of the body long, in otherwords without a host, just minutes. The Hep B can survive outside of the body for days! Hep B in the US is mostly transmitted thru dirty neddles. The herpes virus is easily transmitted. Sharing a glass, a smoke a girl if it gets on your face, it will be all over the place! (It being type 2, look it up)

AIDS is transmitted in Africa through a secondary infection and unsafe/unprotected sex practices (anal/vaginal sex w/o a condom). A woman has an untreated STD, with breaks in the vaginal lining and the virus easily enters the body. Homosexuality is alive and well all over the world, except in place where they just aren't having much sex at all. (What no sex) Anyway, the colon(the part of the body just before the rectum, and butthole) is where reabsorbtion of water takes place. The lining of this tube is very vascular and any tear with deposit of semen into the rectum/colon is the recipe for transmission.

In the US black men are sent to prison for commiting horrible crimes. Jailed people have sex. Many times the sex is not consenual, nor is it protected. (Their was even a case of a guy who sued the state of North Carolina because he was raped in prison and became infected, he was in for DUI!, last I read he lost his case.)When they leave prison they take the virus with them. They pass the virus to their GF's thru unprotected heterosexual contact.

White men like prostitutes, and women in general, and have a history of thriving gay communities. (Sarting out homeless and globe trotting with the military, my sex life reads like a national geographic, without all the animals of coarse. Did you know the rhino is an endagered species?) Anyway, it is extremely difficult for a man to get HIV thru heterosexual contact. Johns don't have a high rate of AIDS. Gay white males do.

The names of the states and animals have been changed to protect the innocent. Otherwise I think the above is fairly sound.

You sould always use a condom and abstinence is the only way to completely protect yourself from STD's

chilli-

[A-1 (imported)]

Chilli,

Some of what you claim is just NOT true. Heterosexual transmission of HIV is just as efficient as Gay transmission. The probability of transmission is increased by increased serum viral load.

During the AIDS pandemic of the 1980's AIDS spread through Africa by heterosexual contact. This was called at that time by the WHO (World Health Organization) a Type I epidemic. In Africa, the pattern of infection was 1 male to 1 female.

The Gay AIDS epidemic in America and Europe was known as a Type II epidemic. The infection pattern in this type of epidemic was 10 males to 1 female. Africa was just decimated as was the Gay communities in America and in Europe.

The Pastuer Institute in Paris and Dr. Luc Montagnier and Dr. Robert Gallo of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, MD. USA shared the identification of HIV as the infective agent of AIDS around 1982-4 (without looking it up) . The ELISA test for diagnosis was around 1985-6. The bloodbanks in America spread AIDS because they REFUSED to screen for Hepitiis C. 80% of the AIDS victims of that ERA also had HEPITITIS C. This is why they died so rapidly. Their immune system was strained by the Hep C and then attacked and destroyed by the HIV virus.

You are correct, in that abrasions or skin breaks in the genitilia area can increase transmission, but more importantly, a weakened immune system from combating other STD's speeds the course of the disease and death would come sooner.

In the Gay community in those days the culture was one of free sex and sexual promiscuity. All sorts of STD's were common. Common, but NOT fatal. At least not until HIV was contracted on top of it all. Not that this was not true in the heterosexual community, but multiple sexual partners and multiple sexual constacts each day were much more common in the Gay communities of that era. So, likewise, were STD infections. See?

HIV transmission increases in direct proportion to the number of sexual contacts with multiple partners that one has. This and the jet-setting lifestyles put the Gay community in the Western world at a higher risk and therefore a higher transmission rate.

There is nothing that makes unprotected anal intercourse a more efficient transmitter than unprotected vaginal intercourse, per se, except for frequency of contact, number of partners and viral load that results from the collapsed immune system.

Don't get me wrong. I AM NOT criticizing the Gay community. Perhaps what saved the heterosexual community in the Western world from an epidemic like Africa suffered was that the epidemic occurred first in the Gay community because of the social mores and sexual practices that were common to those folks in that era. Then, the Gay community got militant and used the Civil Rights strategy of Civil Disobedience to protest and to demand action. Here, check THIS (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=AC ... h&aq=f&oq=) out.

In addition the heroic actions of Gay Activists shocked the sexually constipated bigots of the Reagan era and shamed them. There were revealed to be the haters that they were by their actions and their judgmental statements and actions.

My personal favorite of that era was C. Everett Koop. M.D., Reagan's Surgeon General who absolutely REFUSED to be dictated to by politics and boldly and PUBLICALLY stated the facts that helped FORCE the Reagan Administration to do more. (Although they did it begrudgingly.)

HERE (http://www.avert.org/aids-timeline.htm) is a timeline of the disease.

HIV/AIDS has a fascinating history and is a fascinating story. The tragic human toll is still being paid today with no end in sight.

However, make no mistake. There is NOTHING that makes this a disease that Gay people suffer from at a disproportionate rate than other people today.

It was circumstance that made the Gay epidemic spread so fast, in the 1980's and nothing else.

IT IS a disease that all people can catch sexually, regardless of with whom you choose to have unprotected sex.

[IbPervert (imported)]

I know that a virus doesn't require nutrients or energy to survive, so it might be able to stay in a lifeless environment for as long as it takes to infect another person, but STDs are called STDs because they are not very infectious; only an exchange of bodily fluids can usually transmit it. I don't even want to think of how people might be exposed to the bodily fluids of a dead person.

Since we're listing all possible solutions up to and including murder, I'm surprised that penectomy wasn't mentioned. You could still transmit through blood, but the infection rate would surely plummet.

Any open wound or cut in the skin plus blood from the recent dead and you have a blood born infection. Otherwise, why do corners put on rubber gloves?

[chilliwilli (imported)]

A-1,

Now my best bud manages the STD cases for the entire county. You catch something and he knocks on your door. Kinda like working homicide; "Look, just give me the names, I won't turn you out. You turn states evidence, you could be back on the street in no time!" Some guys have all the fun.

Anyway...he lets me rant all night, I have read several articles stating that HIV transmission is increased with anal sex and not as easy with vaginal. But hey, who wants to play russian roulette. I encourage everyone to go out and read as much as they can so that they know the risks before engaing in any kind of behavior.

chilli-