
disease control
International Organizations deny essential services to poor countries, Part 2

Many international organizations propagate drastic population control measures under the radar while publicly advocating and providing (some) aid to the poor and endorsing environmental concerns. This includes governmental and nongovernmental agencies such as UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), UNFPA (United Nations Fund for Population Activities), The World Bank, USAID (United States Agency for International Development), the Club of Rome and its many spin-offs, Worldwide Fund for Nature, formerly called World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Green Peace, Population Council, International Planned Parenthood Federation, etc.
As a part of the Population Control Agenda and the overpopulation myth, in addition to enforced sterilization, abortion and birth control methods, other means of limiting both population and life span have been applied to impoverished countries and are often tied to reception or denial of aid or loans[i].
Of these, disease control and electrical power are the most important because they can facilitate many of the other items on the list, and kick-start the economy. A healthy workforce and power to run industry, business, medical facilities and develop transportation systems are key to economic development. Although many African countries need foreign aid and international loans now, the goal should be to help them raise their economy to the point where they are net contributors to the world economy or at least are self sufficient. (NOTE: most actual foreign aid only props up corrupt leaders; the people get very little of it. Some estimate that only 2% goes to help the people or build needed infrastructure.)
Throwing crumbs at the problem is not enough to accomplish this goal without actual investment in infrastructure. See detailed list below of essential necessities that international organizations have denied or failed to provide/ promote :
DDT and Disease Control: Banning DDT has caused a rebound of malaria, once almost eradicated in many areas, and many other insect borne diseases, resulting in an estimated million deaths each year from malaria alone. (Estimates vary, but the real number is unknown.) Many of the agencies named above, as well as many Western nations, withheld funds from foreign aid and loans for development unless underdeveloped countries abandoned DDT. Poorer nations had no choice but to “voluntarily” ban the use of DDT to control insect borne diseases, which account for 80% of infectious diseases in these countries. The economic loss in human productivity from malaria, TB and other diseases is incalculable.
Further research has disproved the claims of Rachael Carson’s book, Silent Spring, that DDT causes environmental harm to birds or aquatic life, cancers or other human harm. Predictions of an upsurge in cancer and extinction of birds failed to materialize. Not one human has ever been seriously harmed or died from its use or abuse, and robins to eagles flourished during and after its 30 year use in the United States. DDT is practically insoluble in water, so no aquatic toxicity is possible and soil bacteria destroy it in a few weeks or months, ending any persistence.
It is cheaper than other insecticides, and is safer and easier to make, handle and distribute. The claims that insects in poor countries developed immunity to it are false or grossly overblown. (Also, many African countries lacking transportation infrastructure never used DDT in the past so that development of resistance was impossible.) India never participated in the ban, manufactures its own DDT and uses it judiciously with occurrence of very little resistance. The UN standards for allowing use of DDT include unrealistic proof of NO DDT resistance in the area. That’s proving a negative, which is impossible. The aim is not to exterminate every mosquito, but to reduce their numbers until there are no more human carriers.
In addition to DDT treatment on interior walls for mosquito control, insect and parasite control must also include replacing thatched roofs where mosquitos hide with metal or tile, sealing the interior of homes from insects with wire screens that allow cooling air in but exclude insects, as well as education, fly swatters and glue strips, clean water to prevent dysentery and waterborne parasites, shoes/ sandals to keep pinworms and other parasites from entering through the feet, closed toilets, preferably with septic systems, to reduce fly-borne diseases.
Malaria Facts: Malaria drugs can cure malaria if available, but symptoms only appear after 9 to 14 days or longer, by which time there may be liver or kidney damage. Once symptoms appear, malaria can kill in as little as one day or persist for weeks or relapse over a longer period of time. Reinfection is possible since the parasite imparts only partial immunity. Each bout of malaria destroys red blood cells equivalent to a pint of blood, resulting in chronic anemia and kidney damage from repeated bouts for much of the African population. Babies, children, pregnant women, the elderly and the infirm are especially vulnerable.
The malaria parasite requires both humans and mosquitos to complete its life cycle. Mosquitos are “born” clean and must pick up the parasite (Plasmodium sp.) from an infected person. It takes another 10 days for the parasite to change into the stage that is infectious to humans. No infected humans, no malaria even though the mosquito vector may still exist. That is why it did not recur in North American and European countries when DDT was banned after 30 years’ use. Human malaria does not infect animals and vice versa, with the rare exception of Plasmodium knowlesi, a primate species found in Southeast Asia.
Power Plants: Over 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa have no access to electricity. Based on CO2 reduction, Climate Change advocates and international agreements provide funding preferentially for renewable energy such as solar and wind power, which are unreliable, intermittent, environmentally harmful and require exotic elements, meanwhile discouraging or prohibiting development of power plants based on abundant fossil fuel, (coal, oil or natural gas), hydroelectric, geothermal or nuclear energy. Hydroelectric power is necessarily clean, renewable and sustainable, but is hated by environmentalists for assumed harm to ecosystems. Earlier successes in other countries over time have proven this assumption false except for temporary local effects. Nature adapts. (NOTE: the huge areas cleared for wind “farms” disrupt the environment far more than conventional hydroelectric or hydrocarbon fueled power plants.)
Solar and wind power are, by their nature, inconsistent, unreliable and intermittent. Solar only works during the day when the sky is clear or nearly clear. Wind only works on windy days, but only in a narrow range of velocities; too slow doesn’t generate power; too fast and both blades and generators are damaged un less switched off. Wind power kills birds and bats that are important for insect control, and creates infrasound that is harmful to humans and animals. Both solar and wind power require backup generation by other means: fossil fuel, hydroelectric, etc. Solar and wind power are only useful as supplemental sources so they are at best temporary solutions. Single home solar panels are only a feel-good drop in the bucket for the estimated 600 million needy people in sub Saharan Africa. It would be impossible to supply enough of these to make much of a difference, and is at best a temporary solution until rural power systems can be provided. Arguments against other types of power plants usually involved cost of installing transmission lines. However, except for single home solar systems, all types of power have the same requirements, including solar and wind, which require more lines to harvest the power from the sources.
It is well documented that environmentalists have stopped or prevented over 200 hydroelectric dams in Africa, although it is the most sustainable, reliable, cleanest and safest energy source and uses conventional materials and technology. Hydroelectric power doesn’t require huge dam projects. Systems based on even small waterfalls, dams or run-of-the-river systems can supply local power much sooner and cheaper. African rivers have sufficient hydroelectric power generation capacity to supply all of the continent’s needs for the foreseeable future. Only a tiny fraction of it has been developed. One ray of hope is the large Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) being built on the upper Nile with a capacity of 6000 MW. For comparison, the Aswan High Dam in Egypt has 2100 MW capacity and Cohora Brassa in Mozambique has 2075 MW capacity. There are already a number of medium to small capacity systems in Africa including three plants at Victoria Falls. Many more are possible and needed. India was an early pioneer and has become a leader in hydroelectric power generation, exports power and provides engineering support for new systems to other countries.
Geothermal energy is available in seismically active areas in Africa, mostly in the Rift Valley. By sinking wells into thermal strata, steam or hot water can be used to run electricity generators. The technology is well established but development is just beginning in Africa. Other sources of electrical power generation include biomass and tidal generators. Biomass has major drawbacks, including pollution and loss of vegetation from biomass burning. Nuclear is among the cleanest power sources with no emissions, and only limited waste handling issues. Fear of nuclear power is mostly propaganda citing a few rare catastrophes.
The way out of Energy Poverty should involve an all-of-the-above approach, including fossil fuels, geothermal, hydroelectric, nuclear, solar, tidal, biomass and wind. The need is too great in lost lives and productivity to wait. The need is urgent. Once Energy Poverty is eliminated and other systems are in place, then fossil and bio-fuel power plants could be phased out or reduced in favor of hydroelectric, geothermal and nuclear power.
Availability of reliable electricity and natural gas are important for economic development, industry and medical infrastructure as well as home cooking and refrigeration, which are needed to provide a safe, clean food supply and to reduce harmful indoor air pollution from bio-fueled cooking and heating fires. Electricity can solve a host of other problems including water purification, sanitation, roads, railroads, airstrips, access to markets and medical facilities.
Clean Water and Sanitation: Lives and health are impacted by holding as a low priority the development of village clean water wells or providing city slums with at least rudimentary piped-in purified water and sanitation systems. The environmentalist myth of dwindling global water supplies and limited resources is included in the justification of these policies, although village wells and reservoirs behind even modest hydroelectric dams could supply all their needs. Many African women spend hours each day carrying water from streams and lakes, which contains dangerous bacteria and parasites. The result of this is high infant and childhood mortality from intestinal parasites and diarrhea, the number one killer of young children in poor countries.
Sanitation is also needed but ignored, now consisting of open pit toilets, at best, or simply defecation and urination in fields and streams. Flies carry disease from these sources, including tuberculosis (TB), leprosy, typhoid, cholera, dysentery, polio, anthrax, salmonella, parasite eggs and numerous other diseases. With electricity, water pumping and purification as well as flush toilets and local sewage treatment plants are possible. As a start, clean water wells with manual pumps are needed in local villages as well as replacing open pit toilets with septic systems that enclose waste. Without electricity, both hand pumped clean water wells and improved pit toilets to end open defecation can and should be made available as soon as possible.
Transportation: The development of roads and railroads needed for economic development and access to healthcare facilities, employment opportunities and markets is discouraged or prohibited, as disruptive to wildlife habitats. Roads and railroads are erroneously assumed to break up habitats, isolate wildlife populations and disrupt seasonal migration patterns. All of these myths have been thoroughly refuted in areas where new roads and pipelines have not disrupted migration and sometimes resulted in more not less wildlife.
Modern Agriculture: Modern agricultural methods and high yield crops are discouraged or prevented in favor of less productive, more labor intensive subsistence, so-called sustainable, aka organic, farming, “for the good of the environment.” This has the opposite effect and causes soil depletion that naturally results in slash and burn deforestation as depleted fields must be abandoned for freshly cleared land. Modern agriculture is a more sustainable practice, requiring only rotation of crops on fewer acres than subsistence farming and greatly increased yields per acre. Higher yield per acre means fewer acres are needed to feed a population, saves forests and makes surplus produce available to sell or trade. Modern agriculture using fertilizers, pesticides and improved crop varieties are opposed by organic farming organizations and subsidizing governments in developed nations. The Green Revolution of improved varieties and practices, available for 50 years, has been applied successfully in some African nations, but only in areas with adequate roads for access to markets. Building the transportation infrastructure could facilitate introduction of modern agriculture in less developed areas.
GMO[ii] aka Biotech and Improved Crops: Banning or discouraging the use of more productive, more drought, insect and disease resistant and more nutritious conventional high yield and GMO crops for improved yields and better nutrition is a crime against humanity. For example, GMO Golden Rice, provides vitamin A that could end the cycle of blindness and death among the poor whose diets are dominated by rice. The European Union has a ban on all agricultural products, not just GMO, from countries that grow any GMO crops. This ban is largely based on protecting subsidized European farmers from competition by African, Asian and American produce.
Governments of many poor countries choose to ban GMO crops so they can sell their produce to the European Union, not because of any fears of GMO scare stories propagated by anti-GMO advocacy groups. These advocacy groups are backed by Western organic farming organizations to suppress their domestic and imported competition from high yield conventional and GMO crops, thus increasing their market share. GMO is a term used by these groups for biotech improved varieties to imply harmful when it really means improved food crops by inserting specific genes to enhance characteristics such as higher nutrition and crop yields, drought, disease and insect resistance and reduced need for pesticides.
Contrary to scare stories, most companies have given away rights to many of these crops to help poor people, who can choose to grow them or not. Contrary to propaganda of anti-GMO advocates, no one is forced to grow GMO or buy any agricultural chemical. Propaganda would have you believe the big bad Monsanto is holding the world hostage, but the truth is that there are at least 60 developers in a dozen countries involving at least one beneficial modification in each of 30 varieties of fruits, vegetables and fibers. Why would so many develop and promote products that harm their customers? That’s illogical and ridiculous!
In June of 2016, over 100 Nobel Laureates signed an open letter to Greenpeace, the UN and Governments around the world to stop their criminal campaign against Biotech improved crops and in particular Golden Rice that can save the lives and sight of millions. You can read the letter here http://supportprecisionagriculture.org/nobel-laureate-gmo-letter_rjr.html
Industry: Environmentalists and communists discourage development of industry, including manufacturing and natural resource extraction (oil, gas, coal, minerals), as exploiting the workers and harmful to the environment, rather than, in reality, providing employment while raising the standard of living and improving environmental stewardship. The result is high unemployment, unabated poverty and an inability to care for the environment. Control of diseases that now cause high absenteeism and low productivity is as important as reliable electricity for industry. (see DDT above) Foreign and domestic investment and development should be encouraged. Support from industry could further economic and infrastructure development.
Medicine: The UN and environmental organizations have failed to make local medical facilities and medicines available to rural areas. This is tied to failure to provide adequate roads and railroads as well as natural gas and electrical power needed for these facilities and their availability to the rural poor. This is also linked to the population control agenda. In many areas, healing medicines and facilities are lacking essential medicines and devices, while birth control and sterilization facilities are well stocked.
Education: Failure to build schools or to provide instruction in hygiene, nutrition and childcare, and to train the people for skilled and semi-skilled labor, modern agriculture and small business administration. There is also a great need for higher learning facilities to provide medical, technical and leadership personnel.
HIV/AIDS: Diagnosis in rural areas based on symptoms without confirmation of the virus is an excuse for not treating longstanding endemic illnesses and malnutrition. Most of those “diagnosed” with AIDS in poor countries have not been tested for the actual HIV virus. They have been assumed to have HIV/AIDS through disparate symptoms such as fever, headache, rash, sore throat, swollen lymph nodes, weight loss, chronic diarrhea and/or cough, all of which can be caused by malnutrition and many common parasites or infectious diseases as well as severe illnesses such as malaria or tuberculosis (TB). The United Nations has named TB as a leading indicator of AIDS. By the UN diagnosing AIDS from symptoms without lab tests, many TB and malaria victims were left untreated, resulting in higher death rates, (falsely attributed to HIV/AIDS).
While TB and other chronic illnesses often weaken the immune systems and cause acquired immune deficiency, i.e. AIDS, it has nothing to do with HIV or sexual behavior. This deception has a triple whammy for the UN. It excuses high death rates and failure to treat endemic diseases, it incentivizes HIV/AIDS research funding in developed countries by falsely declaring it a pandemic, and it has the potential for vindicating population control programs in the minds of potential donors by creating a false picture of rampant immorality and promiscuity. Even with HIV/AIDS diagnosis, treatment should concentrate on treating the presenting malnutrition and endemic diseases first, e.g. malaria, TB, etc., instead of starting with AIDS chemotherapy, which further depresses the immune system, or no treatment at all.
It should also be noted that those actually tested for HIV/AIDS in urban settings may be misdiagnosed due to low specificity of the test, failure to properly retest and several factors such as pregnancy or other diseases that cause false positives. Manufacturers of the tests require retesting by more than one type of detection protocol for confirmation. The unusually high incidence in South Africa, (60% female at a rate of 15-25% of the population compared to less than 2% in other countries,) may be due to administration at gynecological clinics and failure to retest by more than one method. Any retests are only done by the same protocol as the original diagnosis. Here again, treatment of the endemic diseases first is crucial. HIV/AIDS doesn’t kill people; it cripples the immune system and reduces resistance to other diseases. Note: retesting after HIV/AIDS treatment is started may result in false negatives so it is useless.
Cultural Preservation (Stagnation): Environmentalists promote preservation of primitive cultures in toto as of higher importance than developing higher standards of living while preserving cultural heritages. There is no harm to the cultural heritage by replacing thatched roofs with metal or tile roofs and adding doors and screens to keep out insects and small animals, as well as other “modern” improvements such as electric lights, refrigerators and stoves; a clean water well and proper toilets; a road passable by vehicles to get to markets and clinics, etc.
Political Unrest: Failure to address political corruption, violence and terrorism creates a climate that tends to keep out aid workers from charitable organizations. It also puts roadblocks in the way of developing the economy, industry, education, healthcare, electrical power and transportation infrastructure. Violence in any form must be controlled for development to advance. Pressure by international organizations should be applied to address corrupt governments, lawlessness and violence.
Anticolonial propaganda was and is spread by socialists and communists as a way to control the people and make them suspicious of development efforts by Western charities. Muslim groups have also propagated these scare stories. In the 1960s the Soviet Union stirred up anti-colonialism among African nations leading to demands for independence from colonial powers without adequate preparation for proper self-governance. This was #43 of the 45 Communist Goals revealed by Dr. Cleon Skousen in his 1958 book The Naked Communist and read into the Congressional Record in 1963, “#43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.” 35 African nations became independent in the 1960s, half a dozen in the late 1950s and a similar number in the 1970s. Of course, a large part of the blame falls on the colonial powers that failed to prepare the people for self government or to develop sufficient infrastructure needed for economic development. Rather than a fast overthrow without preparation, a more gradual training and handing over of the government would have prepared them better for self-government and avoided much of the political upheaval, power struggles and violence.
In Summary: As can be readily seen, these priorities are upside down, many having the opposite effect of their stated goals. Keeping people on bare subsistence almost guarantees high birth rates to help farm and in anticipation of high infant and childhood mortality, while causing maximum harm to the environment.
To develop a robust economy, a healthy workforce and infrastructure to facilitate economic development are needed. By far, disease control and electrical power are most needed and can drive development. DDT and electricity could jump-start this development followed by transportation, clean water, sanitation, and medical facilities. Control of insect borne diseases would eliminate high rates of employee absenteeism, encourage both domestic and foreign investment in manufacturing and other industries, and provide much needed jobs and money to raise families out of poverty.
Private corporations in Western countries need to take a fresh look at Africa for investment in foreign production in lieu of communist China. Investment in infrastructure could produce significant benefits while raising the standard of living of millions and developing new markets and protecting the environment. Such successes could have a domino effect. Small starts can become large movements. Already, the future is bright in cities where adequate infrastructure has attracted foreign and domestic investment. In these areas, business sectors outside agriculture and extractive industries are making significant progress.
Get involved. You can do your part as individuals by donating to worthy charities, not UN and Red Cross/Crescent, which squander donations and work through corrupt governments. World Vision http://www.wvi.org/about-world-vision and Samaritan’s Purse https://www.samaritanspurse.org/ ) lead my list of worthy charities for helping needy people directly. Both feature designated donations and have Christmas catalogues that allow donors to buy shares of projects such as clean water wells, medicines, schools, cattle and small animals, agriculture and small business training and support, etc.
Several organizations support biotech, high yield crops and modern farming practices such as: ISAAA, International Service for Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications at http://www.isaaa.org/ and Genetic Literacy Project at https://geneticliteracyproject.org/donate/
[i] See part 1 for more information at International Organizations deny essential services to poor countries, Part 1
[ii] GMO or “Genetically Modified Organisms” is a term invented by the Organic Farming Industry to scare people into avoiding such improved foods. “Non-GMO” is an ignorant term that is used for advertising purposes and to placate Big Organic’s smear campaigns. There is absolutely no benefit to it. The better terms are Precision Agriculture or Biotech Crops. So-called GMO involves a process where a specific plant gene is inserted into a plant to give it beneficial characteristics. Earlier plant breeding processes used a shotgun approach where whole genomes are involved in cross breeding or radiation treatment, and hoping that more beneficial than harmful genes will show up in some off-spring.
Almost four million children set to receive measles rubella vaccine — Database of Press Releases related to Africa – APO-Source
An urgent measles and rubella (MR) vaccination campaign was launched today in Kajiado County by the Government of Kenya, with support of World Health Organization, WHO, UNICEF, Gavi the Vaccine Alliance, and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The campaign, which will be conducted from 26 June to 5 July, aims to vaccinate 3.9 […]
Almost four million children set to receive measles rubella vaccine — Database of Press Releases related to Africa – APO-Source
The Future Looks Bright for African Countries
Longer Term Solutions
- End Population Control Campaigns
- End DDT Bans
- Implement Hygiene Education Programs
- Aggressively Treat All Worm Infestations
- End Insistence on Subsistence Farming
- End the European Union Ban on Importing GMO Crops
- End Insistence on Solar and Wind Power Only
- Provide Electricity and Clean Water Systems for City Slums and Rural Villages
- Encourage Foreign and Domestic Investment
- End Population Control Campaigns. We need to work to stop these campaigns by groups such as UNFPA, USAID, WHO, World Bank, International Planned Parenthood, Population Council, and Club of Rome. A few ways to do this are to
- Expose the lies about overpopulation, their sources, and their aim. The overpopulation myth is all about socialist control, racism, elitism, and misguided environmentalism. Poverty, not overpopulation is harmful to the environment. Raising people out of extreme poverty will benefit the environment.
- Defund all programs that promote involuntary or forced sterilizations, birth control, or abortion. Promote voluntary, informed choices only. President Trump reinstated the Mexico City Policy, which withholds funds from foreign aid programs that promote or perform abortions. He also defunded UNFPA through the Kemp-Kasten amendment, which prohibits funding for any organization supporting coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization. Unfortunately, some other population control advocacy groups have stepped in to fill the gap. The US must pressure the UN and member countries to end this practice worldwide. The US must also defund Planned Parenthood.
- End overstocking population control drugs, devices and sterilization supplies in hospitals and clinics. Use the funds from this and other population control activities to stock medical facilities with medicines and supplies for endemic diseases such as malaria, TB and parasites. Medical facilities need supplies for treating injuries, surgical supplies and vaccination sera to save children’s lives.
- Provide sanitation, clean water and soap for handwashing for all clinics and hospitals.
- Train local people as medical assistants in the tradition of the field medic as a first line of defense.
- End Western values-based sex education in schools that encourages abortion, multiple partners, and thus sexually transmitted diseases. These practices are contrary to local cultural and religious beliefs and practices. We must respect their cultural and religious beliefs, which value children and family above all else. Imposing Western values on them destroys families and results in the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Encourage monogamy and fidelity in marriage to one sexual partner as one of the best ways to reduce sexually transmitted diseases.
- End DDT bans. Begin widespread spraying in homes and medicate victims to cut the cycle of malaria and other insect-borne diseases. The Environmental Protection Agency, the International Agency for Research on Cancer and other agencies that regulate possible toxins must change their regulations to allow DDT to be used for control of mosquitos and other insects. India is a good example of how effective this approach can be. In several government facilities, India manufactures DDT and other insecticides that can be purchased by people in African and other developing countries. India sprays DDT on interior walls of homes twice a year in malaria prone areas. This practice is a good first step in ending the malaria cycle and has greatly reduced the deaths from malaria in India. Africa could reduce theirs accordingly with DDT on interior walls as well as bed nets. Bed nets alone are not a good substitute for DDT spraying.
Global Malaria Deaths[1] India is included in the South-East Asia group.
- Implement Hygiene Education Programs. Focus on educating all people, especially rural poor, about microbes and hygiene. Teach skills needed to provide clean water such as: How to filter and purify water; How to make soap and set up handwashing stations; How to dig wells and latrines; Safe use of composted wastes for fields; How to keep waste and other contaminants out of streams.
- Aggressively Treat All Worm Infestations. Alongside treating for worms it’s important to provide shoes for all children to prevent re-infestation.
- End Insistence on Subsistence Farming as a more sustainable method. Encourage modern agricultural methods and improved varieties that are better suited to their environment, with higher nutrition and higher yields. This also ends or reduces slash-and-burn deforestation.
- End the European Union Ban on Importing GMO Crops. This and other protectionist philosophies, stagnate development in European countries and cause African countries to reject improved crops. Educate the people and the leaders of developing countries about modern agricultural methods and the benefits of GMO and other high yield varieties. Educate European leaders and farmers about the potential market for their goods in developing countries. This can be accomplished through advertising campaigns to the general public, not just entrenched government leaders.
- End Insistence on Solar and Wind Power Only. Encourage large and small electricity projects by all means possible, including fossil fuel, hydroelectric, geothermal, and nuclear. Fund large and small hydroelectric and fossil fuel power plants and transmission lines into rural areas through loans. Until larger projects and grid systems can be implemented, promote local mini and micro hydroelectric, geothermal and fossil fuel systems. These small systems can be incorporated into a wider grid when that becomes available.
- Provide Electricity and Clean Water Systems for All City Slums. Improve housing, sanitation, and clean up standing water and wastes that breed insects and disease. Spray insecticides regularly to reduce insects that carry diseases. Cleaning up the slums can go a long way toward encouraging investments.
- Encourage Foreign and Domestic Investment. It is important to encourage investment in all sectors including agricultural, natural resource extraction, manufacturing, service sector and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math). It is time to re-examine the company town concept. Historically used for extraction industries in isolated areas, company towns can be useful for other businesses such as manufacturing, service and STEM in order to attract, train, and house employees and their families.
Encourage building of company towns with homes, hospitals, schools, and markets for employees in remote areas that provide electricity, clean water, latrines or sanitation systems. These company town projects should include progressively extending roads beyond the town over time to help others not directly employed but that could market agricultural products to town inhabitants. Such extensions over time can provide the basis of a larger transportation system that can encourage further foreign investment in newly opened business centers. Inhabitants of shanty towns (city slums) can be employed and live in new company towns near cities.
The future of Africa looks bright and development is booming in the cities and in more developed agricultural areas. The average GDP growth rate for sub-Saharan African countries is 6.2 percent. Cote d’Ivoiri, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo have GDP growth rates over 7 percent. This is great, but somewhat misleading since a percent of a smaller economy is a smaller amount of growth in real numbers. However, if these growth rates continue as they have been, it will result in real economic progress.
Although historically agriculture and extraction of natural resources have been the mainstays of African prosperity and development, half of all foreign investment in recent years has been outside natural resources. Of the countries that have this profile, a group of countries called the African Lions, which include Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique and Zambia, have led the way. Rwanda has had a growth rate of 9 percent since 2001 because of its favorable business creation policies. In Rwanda child mortality has been reduced, nearly all children have access to education and 98 percent have access to healthcare. Ethiopia has a growth rate of 10 percent but 20 percent of the population are still in extreme poverty with nutritional issues. Botswana has become a leader in online banking due to its low corruption levels and secure business environment.
Corruption is still an issue in many of the developing countries in Africa and elsewhere. Corruption, along with domestic unrest, is one of the major barriers to attracting foreign investment. This corruption is encouraged, supported, and prolonged by foreign aid given to the governments, not directly to the people or to infrastructure contractors. Many government leaders have fat bank accounts by skimming most of the aid that is intended to help the poor and build infrastructure. Even when aid is given in the form of goods, not money, a similar picture emerges. The people may get very little of it as the goods filling warehouses are either sold on the black market to the highest bidder or are left to rot for political reasons.
Any foreign aid needs to be tied to full accountability and transparency by governments about how the money is used and its impact on the people. Free ride foreign aid to governments must be ended to make leaders more accountable to the people, not just their foreign donors. This can lead to free and fair elections.
[1] WHO, 2016
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Control: Communism, Environmentalism and the Overpopulation Myth
Control: Communism, Environmentalism and the Overpopulation Myth.
The roots of environmentalism go back to the eighteenth century in the form of the overpopulation myth of Malthusian-ism, which was all about limiting the human population to prevent a predicted Malthusian Catastrophe, i.e. mass starvation, and for genetic purity, especially among supposedly genetically inferior groups e.g. certain races, cultures and the chronically poor. Malthus was influenced by the utopian socialist beliefs of his father, David Hume and Jean James Rousseau that the poor were incapable of advancing and were preventing the establishment of a perfect utopian society. This belief, in turn, is based on the progressive philosophies of materialism, (i.e. there is no spiritual side, only the material we can see and touch), and humanism, (i e. man is the measure of everything and determines morals to suit his circumstances). From these progressive philosophies grew socialism, communism, fascism, the eugenics[1] movement and environmentalism, all of which are about control of the masses by an elite few, and all are basically anti-human, anti-development and anti-freedom.
In 1798 Thomas Malthus published An Essay on the Principles of Population[2] in which he predicted future starvation based on the assumption that the rate of population growth would far surpass the growth rate of food supplies. Using this belief, he proposed draconian measures to “fix” an assumed overpopulation problem at a time when world population was below one billion. Malthus made two major erroneous assumptions:
- Genetic inferiority and enhanced fertility of less accomplished peoples
- No improvement in crop yields per acre.
He assumed that the only way to grow more food was to increase the number of acres under cultivation, which limited the total “carrying capacity” of any region and indeed the world. We now know that yields have improved by orders of magnitude through things such as introduction of more prolific, disease resistant plant varieties and high yield hybrids, use of nitrogen and mineral fertilization, mechanization and controlling insect and rodent pests. Nor did he foresee the natural reduction of family size that usually occurs when people are raised beyond near-starvation subsistence, and when diseases are controlled so that high childhood mortality is reduced.
Using these false assumptions as a “reason,” he advocated government measures to reduce population growth rates among the poor such as regulating marriage, educating for moral abstinence, as well as birth control and sterilization. However, he opposed nutritional relief and improved hospital access that would have reduced infant mortality and extended life spans among the poor. In his opinion, helping the poor only made the supposed overpopulation problem worse. He extended the same philosophy to Africa where he observed that the Tsetse fly and Malaria helped to keep human population numbers and lifespans low, which he saw as a good thing. Later, based on Malthus’ theories, the British government contributed to the misery and starvation during the Irish Potato Famine by refusing to provide food aid while continuing to ship wheat from estates in Ireland to England.
The same upside down philosophy persists today among progressives who only typically want to manage the poor while keeping them poor. Malthus was pushing evolution and eugenics long before Charles Darwin[3] and Frances Galton[4]. In The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin assumed that the superior races (white Europeans) would eventually cause the extinction of the inferior races (black and brown). Francis Galton coined the term eugenics for a theory about improving the human race through selective breeding and exclusion from reproduction of supposedly genetically inferior groups.
“At some future period, not very distant as measured in centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world.”
—Charles Darwin, Descent of Man
Because genetic inferiority of certain races, cultures and the poor has largely been rejected by more enlightened geneticists and the public in general, (but apparently not for powerful population control supporters), along with vastly improved food production rates, environmentalism is the latest cause celebre to cover brutal inhumanity to man in the form of forced or coerced population control in places like China, India and Africa. The shift from eugenics or racial purity to environmentalism is based on the false assumption that the world is overpopulated, resulting in harm to the environment. This makes environmentalism and population control a perfect match and a good fit for the progressive elite seeking control.
Is it true that the world overpopulated? Only if agriculture had remained as it was in the eighteenth century. However, the advances in crop yields are more than enough to feed the world. There is more than enough food for all. The reason for starvation and poor nutrition is usually political mismanagement or worse, such as well-meaning environmental and population control philanthropic societies, NGOs, UN and local governments intentionally keeping the poorest in their disease ridden squalor without adequate infrastructure to provide for basic needs as a means to control the people. A healthy and educated population is much harder for a dictator to control and thereby remain in power.
The best way to stabilize population, if that is the goal, is to raise the standard of living by providing employment, transportation, electricity, medical care, education, clean water and adequate food. It is a well known fact that family size is naturally reduced when living standards are improved beyond the point where excess children are needed to insure replacement of those lost in early childhood to disease and malnutrition. It can be argued that the healthy population is too low in many areas to provide the cooperation and man power to provide better facilities without outside aid. Only cities are overpopulated, and that is usually by choice. As population numbers have grown, the world has seen an increase in the standard of living, as reflected in the global GDP per capita, due to division of labor and shared responsibility for both agriculture and developing infrastructure. We should be doing all we can to raise the world’s poor out of poverty. Caring for the environment is the last thing on the minds of people who are having difficulty feeding their children. Raising their standard of living is the best thing we could do to stabilize the population and protect the environment. Unfortunately, the progressives would rather do the opposite for ideological reasons.
I have seen the benefits of higher population and the negative side of low population myself. I grew up in an area of the Appalachian Mountains where population is low. Services that are available in the cities and towns a couple of hours away are historically not or only marginally available in these mountainous rural areas. Even finding a plumber or electrician is difficult. Although the situation is better now because of improvements in highways, many in the area still must travel to the cities for proper medical care. Lower population means lower tax basis, fewer businesses, less opportunity. It has been difficult getting businesses, whether they are medical facilities, manufacturing, commercial or food and entertainment, interested in locating in an area where the customer and workforce base are low. It has been particularly difficult getting doctors to come and stay. It hasn’t been that long since the first fast food restaurant came into the area. I bring this up to illustrate the logic of raising the population to improve living standards. Granted, this is a far cry from poor villages in other countries, but it still illustrates the point that higher population brings higher living standards.
NOTE: Updated from Anti-humanism, Communism, Environmentalism and the Overpopulation Myth, June 2018.
[1] Eugenics is the “science” of improving the human race by selective breeding of genetically superior people and preventing supposedly genetically inferior people from reproducing.
[2] Thomas Robert Malthus, An Essay on the Principles of Population, 1798, London
[3] Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species , 1858, London, The Descent of Man, 1871
[4] Francis Galton, 1865 article “Hereditary Talent and Character”, Hereditary Genius., 1869, Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development, 1883.
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Learn the truth and how you can help change this horrible situation of longstanding crimes against poor countries by international organizations and advocacy groups.
Read the first chapter free through Bookfunnel at www.bit.ly/
Award-Winning Finalist in the Social Change category of the 2019 International Book Awards
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Overpopulation – The Deadly Myth Behind The Other Myths
Who says the world is overpopulated? And what does that mean anyway? Hunger? Crowding? Environmental harm? For over 200 years we’ve been told that the world is overpopulated. But is it? Check this out.
In 1798, Thomas Malthus thought the world was overpopulated when world population was under one billion. In his book, An Essay on the Principles of Population, he advocated not supporting the poor and controlling the population. He was wrong.
When world population was about 1.3 billion, Charles Darwin, who’s Theory of Evolution was based on Malthus’ book, thought the struggle for survival would cause the extinction of underdeveloped cultures by developed peoples. He was wrong.
Francis Galton, creator of Eugenics, the so-called science of improving the human race, thought the African races were so inferior genetically that Chinese should be settled in Africa to drive the Negro races to extinction and replace them. He was wrong.
Around 1920 when the population was about 1.9 billion, Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood and a prominent eugenicist, believed we needed to get rid of “human weeds,” including dark skinned people from Southern Europe, Africa and India as well as the mentally or physically impaired. She advocated for sterilization, birth control, and abortion. She was wrong.
In the 1930s when world population was about 2 billion, Adolf Hitler believed the world was overpopulated and sought to gain “Lebensraum” (living room) by invading other countries and exterminating “inferior” people, including Jews and Gypsies. By doing so he sought to create a super race of Arian Germans. He was wrong.
In 1966 when the world population was 3.3 billion, to control population, under President Johnson, US AID began requiring population control quotas as a condition for receiving foreign aid. Mass sterilization camps were set up in poor countries using equipment supplied by the UN and US. He was wrong.
Meanwhile, in the 1960s the Green Revolution of higher yield, more disease resistant and more nutritious varieties, increased crop yields by orders of magnitude, making it possible to feed the world without sacrificing forests and other pristine wilderness areas.
When The Population Bomb was published in 1968 by Paul Ehrlich, world population was about 3.7 billion. He believed the world was overpopulated and required drastic action to reduce the population in order to prevent mass starvation and collapse of the society. He was wrong.
In 1972, after nearly 30 years of controlling disease carrying insects, DDT was banned by the EPA in spite of overwhelming evidence refuting claims of harm; the ban was based more on political fears of growing populations in developing countries than on real science or perceived harm. Before the ban DDT eliminated Malaria in the developed world. Developing countries were threatened with loss of foreign aid if they did not discontinue DDT use. Most did, but India did not comply.
Today the world population is about 7.5 billion. USAID, UNFPA, (UN Fund for Population Activities), UNESCO (UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), WHO, World Bank, International Planned Parenthood, Population Council, Marie Stopes and other groups continue the Overpopulation Myth with abortion, sterilization, IUD implantation and birth control activities in poor countries around the world. They are still wrong.
So, is the world overpopulated? Not by any measure. Let’s look at what we mean by overpopulated.
Do we have enough food for everyone? Yes. Thanks to modern agricultural techniques and high yield crops there is more than enough for at least 11 billion people without any increase in acres cultivated. Advancing technology will probably multiply the yield still further as it has in the past. Myths against modern pesticides, herbicides, modern agricultural techniques and biotech crop enhancements (aka GMO) are used to keep poor countries on subsistence agriculture, which results in deforestation to replace depleted fields.
Is the food distributed fairly? No. Other than disasters and wars, hunger has more to do with local politics than with food supplies. Corrupt governments, propped up by government to government foreign aid, which the poor rarely see, are incentivized to help with international population control schemes, but not to build infrastructure, attract investment and help to raise the standard of living of their own rural poor. As long as the people are kept poor, the aid money keeps coming, so corrupt governments have little or no incentive to improve conditions for their people. Foreign aid must be replaced by foreign and domestic investment in infrastructure with accountability.
Is there enough room for all the people? Compared to the land area of the earth, the population is very small. For perspective, if all the people in the world were placed in an area the size of Texas, each person would have almost 93 square meters. A family of four would have 372 square meters. That’s about 4000 square feet, enough for a 2000 square foot house and a yard or garden. This thought experiment puts population in perspective with the size of the earth. No one is suggesting we actually do this, except for the loony left who are grasping at straws to defeat this argument against the overpopulation myth.
Global average population is 55 people per square kilometer of land area, excluding Antarctica. That’s 17.96 acres per family of four. In 2016, over 54% of the population lived in cities, which covers only 2.7% of the land. That means that 46% of the population is rural and lives on 97.3% of the land area. That calculates to 26 people /km2 in rural areas or 38 acres per family of four. Yes, I know that large areas are uninhabitable. Even if we assumed 50% uninhabitable, that’s still a lot of land per person. The fact that only 10% of the land is actually inhabited doesn’t change the picture. There is still a lot of land out there to accommodate and feed a larger population. All this doesn’t even count the 71% of the earth’s surface that is water, which is a food source and a highway between markets.
Is Overpopulation causing Climate Change? As a part of the biosphere, the human race is a small contributor to the total carbon and carbon dioxide gas, and is exceeded by orders of magnitude by land and sea vertebrate animals, and even more extremely by insects and other invertebrates, both in numbers and total mass. One estimate claims there are 300 pounds of insects for every human pound, or 1.4 billion insects per person. With almost 2 million different species described so far and possibly many more un-described, estimates vary widely, even for human populations, especially in poor countries. Corrupt governments may over estimate numbers and under report economic conditions to receive more foreign aid dollars.
Is the environment being harmed by too many people? No. Poverty, including subsistence farming, not population, causes environmental harm and deforestation. Modern agriculture and higher yield crop varieties can end deforestation and provide surplus crops to sell. Roads, electricity, clean water and disease control can provide a healthy workforce and energy to attract investors and run industry. Historically, improved infrastructure and opportunity also stabilize populations and reduce family size. By keeping the poor in poverty, environmentalists actually are doing more harm to the environment. Raising standards of living means people will be able to care for their environment.
Many developed countries have bought into the overpopulation myth to the point that their birth rates are below replacement value. Japan, which reached one of the lowest global birth rates of 1.4 in 2014, has started paying people to have children because of the looming demographic catastrophe of too few people to work and support the elderly who cannot work. Some of the highest density areas of the world are the richest. Look at Shanghai. It is not only the most populated city in the world, 24 million, with an average population density of 2050/km2 (3854/km2 urban) but is one of the most prosperous.
Rural poor areas in developing countries are underpopulated. With diseases from insects and contaminated water taking a high toll and attrition from migration into cities by the young and healthy, there are not enough healthy people to build infrastructure and markets and raise the standard of living of the rural poor. They already have population control by disease and poverty. They certainly don’t need birth control, sterilization and abortion.
Is the planet overpopulated? By all measures of overpopulation, the earth is far from capacity to support its people. Since overpopulation advocates have been scaring us for 200 years, why should be believe what they keep saying? Quit worrying about an assumed problem that has yet to materialize. The real problem is with the population control advocates, the abortionists, the sterilizers and the international governmental and nongovernmental organizations that keep paying these organizations for killing off the hope of the future while keeping people in extreme poverty: poor, sick, isolated, ignorant and controlled. Free market solutions are the answer, not money given to prop up corrupt government officials, which the poor rarely see.
The rural poor in developing countries need disease control, electricity and roads to end isolation. They need Employment, Education, Investment, Infrastructure and Disease Control to join the 21st century. It is possible and you can help.
How can you help? Get involved through charities, investments and campaigning against policies that hurt and oppress the poor. Be an advocate for economic development and against population control.
Note: Updated from an earlier post, June 2019.
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Learn the truth and how you can help change this horrible situation of longstanding crimes against poor countries by international organizations and advocacy groups.
Read the first chapter free through Bookfunnel at www.bit.ly/
Award-Winning Finalist in the Social Change category of the 2019 International Book Awards
Buy the book; available in book and ebook formats at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million.
Africa’s wild polio-free status to be determined in August — Database of Press Releases related to Africa – APO-Source
The independent Africa Regional Certification Commission (ARCC), responsible for certifying the eradication of wild poliovirus in the World Health Organization (WHO) African Region, is set to make its final decision about the region’s wild poliovirus status in August 2020. Following field verification visits over the past year and thorough critical analysis of the documentation of […]
Saving Africa From Lies That Kill – this book is a Must Read
I just checked the best seller ranking of my book, Saving Africa From Lies That Kill: How Myths about the Environment and Overpopulation are Destroying Third World Countries on Amazon.com. For a non-fiction, non-biographical and non-pop culture book it is coming up in the rankings very nicely. Thank you. This is encouraging because the message of raising African and other poor countries out of poverty and into the 21st century is so important.
See rankings and other information from Amazon at the end of this post. Read the first chapter free through Bookfunnel by clicking here
Saving Africa From Lies That Kill: How Myths about the Environment and Overpopulation are Destroying Third World Countries is an award-winning finalist in the Social Change category of the 2019 International Book Awards. The book is available in print and eBook (USD $2.99) through Amazon and other online outlets. For easy access, just click on the link to the Amazon listing here.
After reading the book, please remember to review it on Amazon; reviews are very important to reach more readers. Share the book with a friend and do your part to end bad practices.
Visit my blog at https://savingafricafromliesthatkill.com/ for more information and to sign up for email updates. You can also like my Facebook page to receive future posts through Facebook.
From the back cover:
In Saving Africa From Lies That Kill, Kay Kiser exposes the long-standing crimes committed against developing nations by the United Nations, World Bank, USAID and Planned Parenthood.
Under their guise of “aid,” these organizations mire the underprivileged in isolation, poverty, sickness, and ignorance. In her book, Kiser argues:
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- Poverty, not overpopulation, causes environmental damage. Higher standards of living and lower infant mortality can improve the environment and stabilize the population.
- Developing nations need access to reliable electricity in order to end energy poverty. This will, in turn, provide clean water, develop transportation, and power hospitals, homes and industrial investment.
- The Green Revolution and modern agriculture can feed everyone and end deforestation.
Fortunately, you can do something about the problem—and Kiser shows you how!
DEDICATION
To the poor and the oppressed striving to live free.
All profits from the sale of this book will be applied to
organizations that are working to alleviate the suffering of
the rural poor in developing countries, and to bringing them
into the twenty-first century.
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Also in print rankings:
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,449,093 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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#4316 in Church & State Religious Studies
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#2401 in Environmental Policy
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#4033 in History of Religion & Politics
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The Truth about HIV/AIDS in Africa
Are most cases of HIV/AIDS in Africa really misdiagnosed endemic diseases?
The Claims: HIV/AIDS from unsafe heterosexual contact is rampant in Africa. Many children are left as orphans because both parents have died from AIDS.
The Truth: While HIV/AIDS is undoubtedly present in Africa and other destitute areas, there are problems with its reported transmission, diagnosis and treatment. HIV infections in the developed world occurs almost exclusively among homosexual males and IV drug users who share needles with infected people, and heterosexual transmission is rare. In Africa, half of those diagnosed with HIV and HIV/AIDS are heterosexual women, so there must be other mitigating circumstances. It is possible that actual infections are acquired through non-sterile injections in contraceptive clinics. This could help to explain why HIV in Africa is diagnosed equally among men and heterosexual women. It is very likely that HIV and HIV/AIDS are over diagnosed in Africa and other poverty stricken areas of the world with or without actual HIV testing. Many cases of AIDS in Africa may have little or no connection to the HIV virus or indiscriminate sexual practices. Those that are malnourished or have chronic diseases such as TB or malaria naturally have compromised immune systems, i.e. Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, AIDS, from these conditions without carrying the actual Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).
Because of poor healthcare facilities and abilities, HIV/AIDS may be diagnosed based on symptoms without HIV testing in many rural and isolated areas. In other areas, where actual testing for HIV antibodies is done, a high incidence of false positives is likely to occur. This is due to the poor specificity of the test and reaction with antibodies from other diseases and conditions. Most of those diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, whether tested or untested for HIV, have been assumed to have full blown HIV/AIDS through disparate symptoms recognized by the UN WHO including fever, headache, rash, sore throat, swollen lymph nodes, weight loss, chronic diarrhea or cough, all of which can be caused by many common parasites or infectious diseases as well as severe illnesses such as malaria and tuberculosis (TB). UN WHO has named TB as a leading indicator of HIV/AIDS and lists TB as causing 2/3 of HIV/AIDS deaths. HIV/AIDS itself does not cause death; it opens the way for other diseases that kill people. Reporting TB deaths as HIV/AIDS deaths without confirmation of HIV bolsters the statistics, as does reporting orphans as AIDS orphans. At this time it is impossible to know how prevalent over diagnosis is in Africa and other poor areas.
Over diagnosis of HIV and HIV/AIDS, when promoted by the international media, paints a picture of Africa that packs a triple whammy for AIDS advocates and international population control governmental and nongovernmental organizations. First, it excuses high death rates and failure to treat endemic diseases; secondly, it incentivizes HIV/AIDS research funding in developed countries by falsely declaring AIDS a heterosexual pandemic; thirdly it has the potential for vindicating population control programs in the minds of potential donors by creating a false picture of rampant immorality and promiscuity. As a bonus, it also encourages the use of condoms that furthers population control agendas.
HIV facts and questions:
HIV causes AIDS: Unlike those who deny that HIV causes AIDS or that it even exists, I do not deny that HIV causes AIDS or that HIV exists. I do question some of the current statistics, testing and treatment options. Because it is politically incorrect to question the UN WHO recommended practices and conclusions, those who question the status quo will undoubtedly be accused of denialism by AIDS advocates in order to conflate, confuse, discredit and silence anyone daring to question the efficacy of the current testing and treatment methods, even when it might lead to better understanding and improved protocols.
Non-HIV AIDS: TB, Malaria, dysentery and other serious chronic diseases cause a more common form of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, AIDS, that has no connection to HIV/AIDS or sexually indiscriminate behavior. It is well known that anyone who is chronically ill and/ or malnourished naturally has a compromised immune system. Other opportunistic diseases are easily acquired by persons whose immune systems are compromised. By labeling these non-HIV AIDS cases as HIV/AIDS, it can be an excuse for not treating the underlying conditions.
Unfortunately, for USAID, UN WHO and activist NGOs or agencies that provide aid to poor countries, because their emphasis is on required or coerced population control and not on treating disease, many clinics do not have the basic medicines, equipment or facilities to treat endemic diseases, but have store rooms filled with birth control drugs, condoms and other birth control and abortion materials and equipment. This is a human tragedy and a crime against humanity that must be stopped. It is unconscionable that Western aid not be heavily weighted toward supplying medicines and equipment for prevention and treatment of endemic diseases.
Recommendation: In both HIV/AIDS and non-HIV AIDS, treatment should always begin with addressing the presenting diseases and malnutrition. Once the patient is stabilized then HIV/AIDS treatment can begin, but only after further confirmation of the original diagnosis of HIV/AIDS. HIV/AIDS treatment drugs further compromise the immune system so that treatment of weakened, disease ravaged patients and those with non-HIV AIDS using these drugs may do more harm than good.
International aid organizations should be encouraged or required to reverse their decades old practice of oversupplying population control materials and under-supplying needed medicines, facilities, equipment and supplies to treat endemic diseases.
Demographic Shift: HIV/AIDS in developed countries is confined almost exclusively among homosexual men and IV drug users who share needles with HIV infected people. The expected pandemic in developed countries never materialized. According to official statistics, Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 2/3 of the HIV incidence in the world, with Southern Africa, (South Africa and Botswana), accounting for most of that. 15 to 25% of the South African population has been diagnosed with HIV or HIV/AIDS. More than half of the HIV positive people in South Africa are heterosexual women. Heterosexual contact is blamed for causing the spread of HIV, but in other countries heterosexual transmission is very rare. Unless the HIV virus has mutated, this theory of frequent heterosexual transmission cannot be valid and other mitigating factors must be considered.
Shared needles as a possible source: One theory is that the reuse of hypodermic needles for injected birth control drugs is responsible for the spread of HIV, and, if true, could account for the higher incidence in women in Africa and other poor countries where injected birth control is required or advocated. Injectable birth control drugs such as Depo Provera that must be reinjected every 3 months are sometimes administered in a clinic, but more often the drug and the syringes are given to patients for administration at home. Because viruses do not live very long on surfaces outside the body, HIV could not be transferred unless an HIV infected person has used the needle just prior to reuse by a second person for birth control. This could only happen in a clinic where multiple women are injected one after another without proper sterilization of needles.
How are these in-home administered reused needles causing HIV/AIDS without an immediate HIV contamination source in each case? It is more likely that in-home injections with improperly sterilized needles would transfer opportunistic bacterial infections such as staph and strep. The whole idea of giving hypodermic syringes to uneducated people is ludicrous; it is the worst of the birth control methods, and the best way to spread more disease and misery. Poor women with little or no concept of microbial infective agents are unlikely to discard or destroy needles even if the package instructions say to discard after use.
Recommendation: If this form of birth control must be injected every 3 months, it should only be done by a professional in a clinic with properly sterilized or disposable needles. If birth control is desired, a better alternative would be insertion of an IUD, Intrauterine Device, which does not require regular follow up treatments.
Could Depo-Provera make women more susceptible to HIV infection? According to this theory, the active ingredient in Depo-Provera, (Depo-medroxyprogesterone acetate, aka DMPA), may chemically predispose at risk women to acquiring HIV through sexual contact with infected men, through thinning of vaginal epithelial cells and immunosuppression. Three recent meta-studies[1] show a statistically significant link between use of the drug and incidence of HIV in at risk women. The link to HIV transmission was not established statistically for use of either oral contraceptives or another injectable contraceptive drug, NET-EN, (norethisterone enanthate), in these studies.
Clinical Diagnosis without HIV testing: In rural poor areas of Africa HIV/AIDS may be diagnosed without HIV testing by the clinical indicators listed by WHO such as fever, headache, rash, sore throat, swollen lymph nodes, weight loss, chronic diarrhea or cough. These symptoms may also be caused by endemic diseases such as TB, malaria and other insect borne diseases, dysentery and other water borne diseases, parasites and malnutrition. WHO considers TB to be a leading indicator of HIV/AIDS. Some people diagnosed without HIV testing may instead have non-HIV AIDS caused by these endemic diseases.
Diagnosis with HIV testing: Clinical HIV tests detect antibodies to the virus, not the virus itself. HIV tests have a high incidence of false positives, so that retesting and other confirmation are needed after a positive test result. False positives of HIV testing may be the result of non-HIV AIDS caused by other diseases and pregnancy because the HIV tests are non-specific and may detect antibodies to other diseases or conditions.
Causes of False Positives: HIV testing is not specific to HIV and is prone to false positives. It tests for antibodies to HIV, not the virus itself, but can also detect other antibodies present in chronic diseases or those acquired over a lifetime. There are over 65 documented causes of false positives including TB, malaria, leprosy, hepatitis, Q fever, influenza or colds, herpes simplex, leishmaniosis, and Epstein Barr virus. Pregnancy or prior pregnancies are among factors that can cause false positives due to presence of HLA (human leukocyte antigen). Is it time to question whether HIV testing, without thorough validation, is valid in parts of Africa where the population is routinely exposed to numerous diseases that leave a heavy load of antibodies in their blood?
Validation needed for HIV positives: False positives are common so that, according to manufacturers’ instructions, positive tests must be retested in duplicate and then by another method to verify results, e.g. ELISA twice then Western Blot. ELISA, Enzyme Linked ImmunoSorbent Assay, uses an antigen for the (in this case HIV) antibody bound to a solid surface and an enzyme that causes a color change when the target antibody attaches itself to the antigen. Western Blot actually separates, by gel electrophoresis, each component in a mixture of antibodies bound to specific antigens. Medical testing protocols vary from country to country, so that the same test may be interpreted as positive or negative depending on the protocol. For example, UK does not use the Western Blot verification of duplicate ELISA tests, and different countries require from one to four Western Blot markers to verify and confirm a positive result.
South Africa uses duplicate ELISA only to verify positive HIV tests, resulting in 15-25% of the population testing positive, 60% of which are heterosexual women. South Africa also has a high rate of drug treatment for prevention of mother to child HIV transmission, which may mean that most HIV tests are conducted at gynecological clinics and obstetric hospitals on pregnant women. This is a problem since pregnancy is known to cause false positives. The incidence of HIV and AIDS in most of the other countries in Africa, and indeed the world, ranges from 0.1 to 5.0 percent of the population. South Africa’s 15 – 25% incidence needs a closer look. The fact that over half of these are heterosexual women is also problematic as described above.
Recommendation: South Africans and Botswanans when first diagnosed with HIV or HIV/AIDS need to be retested using a more stringent verification protocol in the future. Unfortunately, the drugs used for treating HIV can cause false negatives, so retesting those already receiving therapy may be useless or at lease confusing.
Opportunistic Diseases: When people sicken and die with HIV/AIDS, it is not the HIV that kills them; it is other opportunistic infections that are able to invade and thrive because HIV has crippled the immune system. TB is the leading cause of death in Africa, with or without HIV/AIDS. A diagnosis of HIV/AIDS can be an excuse not to treat underlying endemic diseases.
Treatment Options: HIV treatment drugs suppress the immune system further than the disease itself. Wouldn’t it make sense to treat the opportunistic diseases and malnutrition more aggressively first before suppressing the immune system further with AIDS treatment drugs? In some areas of Africa, TB and HIV are treated simultaneously, which is a step in the right direction.
Orphans from AIDS? AIDS orphans are defined as anyone 15 years or younger who has lost, depending on the country, their mother, one parent or both parents to “AIDS related diseases.” South Africa includes people up to 18 years old. WHO estimates that 70% of “AIDS orphans” have one living parent. TB is the leading cause of death in Africa and the leading clinical indicator of the presence of AIDS. Since many people in Africa live very short lives, with or without AIDS, how is this any different from the pattern of the past where lifespans are short and teenagers often are orphaned?
[1] References cited in Population Research Institute newsletter article: “While Admitting Risks, WHO Continues to Recommend Injectable Contraceptives for Women at High Risk of Contracting HIV” by Jonathan Abbamonte, April 20, 2017 as follows:
Brind J, Condly SJ, Mosher SW, Morse AR, Kimball J. Risk of HIV Infection in Depot-Medroxyprogesterone Acetate (DMPA) Users: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Issues Law Med 2015; 30(2): 129-39.
Morrison CS, Chen PL, Kwok C, Baeten JM, Brown J, Crook AM, et al. Hormonal contraception and the risk of HIV acquisition: an individual participant data meta-analysis. PLoS Med 2015; 12(1): e1001778.
Ralph LJ, McCoy SI, Shiu K, Padian N. Hormonal contraceptive use and women’s risk of HIV acquisition: a meta-analysis of observational studies. Lancet Infect Dis. 2015; 15(2): 181-9.
The Truth about AIDS in Africa — Science is distorted by progressive philosophy
via The Truth about AIDS in Africa
via The Truth about AIDS in Africa — Science is distorted by progressive philosophy