AIDS in Africa?
by Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos
AIDS IN AFRICA?
by Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos*,
Department of Medical Physics,
Royal Perth Hospital
and
Valendar F. Turner,
Department of Emergency Medicine,
Royal Perth Hospital.
*Corresponding author Department of Medical Physics,
Royal Perth Hospital,
Wellington Street, Perth 6000, Western Australia.
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According to the World Health Organisation, some 2.5 million sub-
Saharan Africans have AIDS--Africa is apparently in the grip of an
AIDS pandemic. (In the USA 300,000 people have AIDS). AIDS in
Africa is portrayed as providing two important lessons for the
West. The first is an example of the potential devastation that AIDS
can unleash, the second is that by heterosexual spread, AIDS will
eventually overtake the West. However, there is no convincing
evidence that millions of Africans are infected with HIV, the
putative cause of AIDS, or that African AIDS is heterosexually
spread.
The only evidence that some Africans are "infected" with a virus
called HIV is indirect, the random testing of Africans' blood for the
presence of antibodies that react with a collection of so-called HIV
proteins. If the "HIV proteins" (present in the test kits) only reacted
with HIV antibodies there would be no problem.
Unfortunately this is not the case. Antibodies produced in response
to the presence of one foreign agent may also react with another
different foreign agent and the more infectious agents that a person
has been exposed to, the greater is the likelihood that such cross-
reacting antibodies will be present.
Ruling out cross-reactions between "HIV proteins" and the plethora
of other antibodies present in individuals constantly exposed to
microbial agents can only be achieved by measuring how good a
match there is between the antibody reactions and the presence or
absence of HIV itself, in other words, by using viral isolation as a
gold standard for the antibody reactions. This has never been done,
neither in Africa nor in the West.
Thus in Africa, no one knows whether the antibody tests are
specific for HIV, that is, whether a positive test actually means HIV
infection.
Many experts on African AIDS accepted this fact even at the
beginning of the AIDS era. Earlier this year Myron Essex, a leading
American researcher and his colleagues from Harvard University,
when discussing their experimental data on HIV antibody testing in
Africa, again warned that the HIV antibody tests "may not be
sufficient for HIV diagnosis in AIDS-endemic areas of Central
Africa where the prevalence of mycobacterial diseases [leprosy and
tuberculosis and others, whose antibodies cross-react] is quite
high".
Thus, in Africa there is no certainty that Africans are actually
infected with a putative new agent, HIV. AIDS experts also agree
that acquired immune deficiency (the "AID" in AIDS) is also long
standing in Africa. This has been caused by malnutrition, certain
well known viruses and diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis,
all of which are known to exert a major depressant action on the
immune system.
Notwithstanding, unlike the West, in Africa AIDS is diagnosed
without any laboratory tests, patients are classified as AIDS cases
without laboratory proof that they have either immunodeficiency or
HIV infection. All Africans need to have are various clinical
conditions. But the conditions accepted as forming the "S"
(syndrome) of "AIDS" in Africa bear no relationship to AIDS in the
West.
In the West, AIDS consists of a person's having one or more of
approximately 27 relatively rare diseases. In Africa, AIDS as
defined by the World Health Organisation 1986/87 Bangui African
AIDS definition is no more than a collage of common non-specific
symptoms and signs such as cough, fever and diarrhoea, and a few
diseases such as tuberculosis (TB) and a cancer called Kaposi's
sarcoma, diseases which have been endemic in Africa for
generations.
Kaposi's sarcoma is described in the Ebers papyrus dating from
1600 BC. (In the West, Kaposi's sarcoma is restricted to gay men).
Of the 661 million people in sub-Saharan Africa, 2-3 million have
active TB with an annual mortality of 790,000. Despite this and the
fact that in adults, "HIV infection" usually follows TB infection,
TB has now become an AIDS defining illness, indeed 30-50% of
African "AIDS" deaths are from TB.
In spite of all this, AIDS experts expect that we and Africans alike
accept that something "new", AIDS, is afoot in Africa and is caused
by a new agent, HIV. Suddenly, a new disease, caused by a new
agent has appeared. The old diseases and their deleterious effects
on the immune system are no longer operative.
Many AIDS experts also expect us to believe that unlike the West,
in Africa AIDS is spread predominantly by heterosexual contact.
Indeed, since the number of heterosexual cases in the West is too
small to be statistically meaningful, the African "evidence" is used
to forecast the same predicament in the West. The claim of
heterosexual spread in Africa is based on absence of "evidence of
homosexual transmission or intravenous drugs" and the
approximately equal numbers of males and females who have AIDS
as well as positive antibody tests.
The latter certainly does not prove that AIDS is heterosexually
spread--influenza and appendicitis also have an equal sex
distribution. Indeed, given the fact what is known as AIDS in
Africa has been present for centuries and was equally common in
men and women, and that positive HIV antibody tests may be due
to the presence of antibodies formed in response to malaria,
tuberculosis, leprosy and many parasitic diseases one would predict
that in Africa an equal number of men and women will have both
"AIDS" and positive antibody tests.
In any case, the theory that AIDS in Africa is transmitted
heterosexually creates more problems for the HIV theory of AIDS
than it solves. A disease is said to be caused by a sexually
transmitted infectious agent if one infected partner, say the active
partner (man) transmits the agent/disease to the passive partner
(woman), who in turn transmits the agent/disease to another
man......That is, heterosexually transmitted diseases are transmitted
bidirectionally, from men to women to men.
In the West, the largest (thousands of cases) and most judiciously
conducted prospective epidemiological studies have proven beyond
all reasonable doubt that in both men and women the only sexual
act leading to the acquisition of "HIV antibodies"(women) or "HIV
antibodies" and eventual AIDS (gay men) is passive (receptive) anal
intercourse.
In other words, in the West, "HIV antibodies" and AIDS, like
pregnancy, can only be acquired by the passive partner. If, unlike
pregnancy, the "HIV antibodies" and AIDS are not caused by a non-
infectious agent (sperm, semen) but by HIV, then HIV will be the
only unidirectionally sexually transmitted infectious agent. The
active partner will have to acquire HIV by other means. This is
strange enough: in the whole history of Medicine there has never
been a sexually transmitted agent/disease which is spread
unidirectionally in the West and bidirectionally (heterosexually) in
Africa.
The only other alternative to this ludicrous scenario is to agree with
African physicians that positive HIV antibody tests in Africa do not
mean infection with HIV and that immunosuppression and certain
symptoms and diseases which constitute African AIDS have existed
in Africa since time immemorial.
According to Professor P.A.K. Addy, Head of Clinical
Microbiology at the University of Science and Technology in
Kumasi, Ghana "Europeans and Americans came to Africa with
prejudiced minds, so they are seeing what they wanted to see...
"I've known for a long time that Aids is not a crisis in Africa as the
world is being made to understand. But in Africa it is very difficult
to stick your neck out and say certain things. The West came out
with those frightening statistics on Aids in Africa because it was
unaware of certain social and clinical conditions. In most of Africa,
infectious diseases, particularly parasitic infections, are common.
And there are other conditions that can easily compromise or affect
one's immune system"
Dr. Konotey-Ahulu from the Cromwell Hospital in London
expresses a similar view:
"Today, because of AIDS, it seems that Africans are not allowed to
die from these conditions [from which they used to die before the
AIDS era] any longer. If tens of thousands are dying from AIDS
(and Africans do not cremate their dead) where are the graves?"
According to him, the uppermost question in the minds of
intelligent Africans and Europeans in that continent is: "Why do
the world's media appear to have conspired with some scientists to
become so gratuitously extravagant with the untruth?"
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