AIDS: a Malthusian Agenda of Depopulation?

[Neumann]

Paragon;706703 wrote:

^Indeed, Cara.

Six years on, have you grown-up or are you still entertaining this conspiracy nonsense?

[raula]

Juxa : Survival sex is the exchange of sex for basic needs such as food, shelter, protection etc (it could be formal long term-as in commercialized settings, brothels, prostitution rings etc or informal temporary -i.e. to achieve an economic standing or independence).

 

As of Today, somewhere in kenya, here is an article about HIV/AIDS & Muslim women (the stories are at time alike and even more poignant in some other parts of the world).

 

"Women play an active role in the community when it comes to socio-economic development but still they face inequality. Kenya, like most African communities, is a patriarchal society and a woman’s place is relegated to the home, where she takes care of the children and family among other household duties and chores. In most African societies, men are heads of families and have the last word in matters.

 

Religion plays an important role when relating to issues affecting women and men. Many Islamic communities in Kenya require women be totally obedient to their husband. In these days of HIV and AIDS, it is necessary to address the inequalities that these women face. When a Muslim women becomes infected by HIV she is faced with the dilemma of disclosure. Telling her family and community that she is HIV positive will leave her vulnerable to public scorn, stigma and discrimination. Some Muslim women say they have been ostracized and rejected and have lost support from their families after disclosing their status.

 

In these communities men are permitted to have up to four wives at any given time and religious leaders do not advocate for condom use as a preventive measure against HIV but rather emphasize abstinence and faithfulness among married couples. This is something that is hard to achieve because in a polygamous setting it can be difficult to pinpoint who is the cause of HIV infection and without condom use it is hard for women to protect themselves.

 

Fathiya*(not her real name) is a young Muslim woman barely out of her teens and living with HIV. She discontinued her schooling to get married because she had already reached marriageable age and had already been circumcised according to the Somali culture. She was married off to a man whose former wife had died after being sick for a long time. Fathiya became pregnant and on attending antenatal clinic she was found to be HIV positive. This shocked her because she had been a virgin on her wedding day and had not had intercourse with anyone except her husband. She disclosed her status to her husband, who told her to leave. At her father’s home she was chased away and branded as immoral.

 

With nowhere to go she rented a room at Majengo where she stayed until she delivered her baby, stillborn. Today, with no skills, work or means to sustain her, Fathiya has resulted to sex work to survive. To her family she is an outcast and they have cut all ties with her. Her husband has since remarried. Fathiya does use condoms with some of her clients but if clients refuse she will sometimes have unprotected sex. Sex without a condom means she will earn double what she normally earns.

 

Amina’s story is similar to Fathiya’s only she found out about her status during a clinic visit and kept it from her husband. She is one of the many women who get infected by their husband.

 

“He is a long distance truck driver and I was just a sitting duck,” she recalls. “I stopped going to hospital when I found out about my status, had I been empowered my child would not have been born positive, but how could I? How could I and risk my family knowing?” she asks. “What I feared then is what happened now, they eventually found out when my baby was born and now I am an outcast in my family, more so when I disclosed and joined a local support group, now no one wants to have anything to do with me, but it is better this way.”

 

 

 

Hawa, has been living with HIV for the last five years but had not disclosed to her family. Will she ever? “No,” she says passionately, “I can’t and won’t; doing that will be like digging my own grave. One, I am divorced and two I have turned to the bottle for comfort, though I am a member of several support groups. I hide my medicine, in case they stumble across it.”

 

There is an urgent need to sensitize and educate Muslim women, especially those living in slums and marginalized rural areas on HIV issues such as PMTCT, safe sex, voluntary HIV screening, reproductive health issues and safe motherhood.

 

Ways and strategies on how to involve religious leaders must be found. In Islam, as in many religions, it can be difficult to consider sexual reproductive health issues without considering the role of religion.

http://www.keycorrespondents.org/2011/12/01/world-aids-day-islamic-women-and-hiv/ "

 

This is what some of us call "collateral damage".

 

Paragon: Speaking of genetics, If only we had similar to the sickle-cell trait of “heterozygous advantage” w/regards to Malaria in the setting of HIV/AIDS disease spectrum? This could be a breakthrough in terms of molecular/evolutionary genetics w/respect to African populations; perhaps in distant ominous horizon. As for now, the battle lingers....

[Persepolis]

Depopulation? That's absurd!

[Paragon]

^I suppose such are the absurdities of the era as to imply depopulation in the works. Perhaps death consumeth all in the 'eventual' and thus all concern is at best vein. Nothing dies.

[Garnaqsi]

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

[burahadeer]

 

 

 

am I smelling coffee here.

[Raamsade]

Why would anyone need to undertake population control in the first place? The world is grossly underpopulated as it is. North and South America are virtually empty as is most of Eurasia (think of Russia, Eastern Europe and the Stans). Australia is empty. Africa is empty; there is barely a billion people in the WHOLE of Africa for crying out loud. In some parts of parts of the world, populations are shrinking or stagnating (Europe, Russia, Japan).

 

The world can accomodate 70 billion people, 10 times it current size. My proof? India and China. Both countries were beset by chronic food shortages and recurrent famines in much of the 20th century. And yet both countries have been able to overcome food shortages and famines while more than doubling their populations. In fact, the people of India and China are better fed, housed, clothed and educated today than at any time in the past.

[burahadeer]

^^ you right the world can accomodate much more,but you know how the rich get greedier unto having their own huge swaths of land & keep talking about quality of life!I don't discount it,there's possibility if some far right groups eva come to power..Hitlerites.This is something you can't get by freedom of information act.Sensitive stuff is done by rogue agencies.

I watched on tv 15yrs ago or so that Aids came from drugs some french doctors were testing on chimps in the congo in the 1950s but only came to the awarness when it reached the west some 20+ yrs later.No one knows how many perished between those yrs.

[raula]

this is a bit of an old article..but interesting re: heightened HIV/AIDS risks w/use of contraceptives.

 

The Pill's Deadly Affair with HIV/AIDS

By Joan Robinson Weekly Briefing: 2010 (v12)

The U.S. is contributing to the spread of HIV/AIDS among African women by its reckless distribution of hormonal contraceptives of all kinds in so-called “reproductive health” programs.

 

Vol. 12/No. 11

 

The world's deadliest killer, HIV/AIDS, and the Birth Control Pill have been carrying on a secret and deadly "love affair" for decades. While women swallowed their “freedom” with the morning orange juice, studies that should have made global headlines yellowed in medical journals, unknown to the general public. Only doctors learned about the pills deadly affair with HIV/AIDS, and they were too busy writing prescriptions for hormonal contraceptives to talk.

 

More than 50 medical studies, to date, have investigated the association of hormonal contraceptive use and HIV/AIDS infection. The studies show that hormonal contraceptives—the oral pill and Depo-Provera—increase almost all known risk factors for HIV, from upping a woman's risk of infection, to increasing the replication of the HIV virus, to speeding the debilitating and deadly progression of the disease.1

 

A medical trial published in the journal AIDS in 2009—monitoring HIV progression by the need for antiretroviral drugs (ART)—saw “the risk of becoming eligible for ART was almost 70% higher in women taking the pills and more than 50% higher in women using DMPA [Depo-Provera] than in women using IUDS.”2

 

Studies aside, it is well known that HIV/AIDS strikes more women than men. Some would argue that this is a result of the desire of men for young—and presumably uninfected, sexual partners. Few are willing to discuss a more obvious explanation, namely, that the Pill and Injectables render women particularly vulnerable to HIV/AIDS.

 

How serious is the problem? Oral contraceptives and Depo-Provera are among the world's most popular and prevalent contraceptive methods. According to one study, “Globally, at least 150 million women currently use hormonal contraceptive methods.”3 In America, hormonal contraceptive rates are over 52% in unmarried women—those at greatest risk of HIV/AIDS. Moreover, in the interest of lowering the birth rate, the UNFPA and USAID continue unloading boatloads of hormonal contraceptives on Africa, Haiti and other AIDS-ravaged developing nations.

 

The best meta-analysis done to date, done by Dr. Chia Wang and her colleagues, surveyed the consensus results of the 28 best published studies since 1985. They found that the “significant association between oral contraceptive use and HIV-1 seroprevalence or seroincidence … increased as study quality increased.” In fact, “Of the best studies, 6 of 8 detected an increased risk of HIV infection associated with OC [oral contraceptive] use.”4

 

On the National Scale

 

Moreover, Wang's results showed even more of a Pill/HIV link when they limited studies to those conducted on African populations. This is significant for two reasons:

 

First, sub-Saharan Africa is home to the world's earliest and largest heterosexual HIV/AIDS epidemic, which to date has infected an estimated 22.4 million5 people. This is two-thirds of the total number of infections worldwide.

 

Second, sub-Saharan Africa has endured decades of contraception-focused population control programs and countless hormonal-contraceptive trials. “Among the six [African] countries hardest hit by the HIV/AIDS epidemic … two in three users in the six countries rely on the OC (oral contraceptives) or injectables,”6 said Iqbal Shah of the World Health Organization.

 

Likewise, Thailand, praised for a contraceptive prevalence of 79.2% in 2000 and upwards of 70% today, is a land where, “More than one-in-100 adults in this country of 65 million people is infected with HIV.”7 Among Thai women, “Oral contraception is the most popular method.”8, 9

 

On the other hand, Japan's HIV rate is, at 0.01%, one of the lowest in the world.10 In this context, it is important to note that the birth control pill was illegal in Japan until 1999, and even today only 1% of Japanese women use oral contraception. Similarly, the predominantly Catholic Philippines, with a longstanding popular resistance to contraception, boasts an HIV “prevalence rate of only 0.02%.”11

 

Hormonal Changes Heighten HIV Risk

 

The studies that demonstrate a connection between hormonal contraceptives and HIV/AIDS infection postulate a number of mechanisms at work.

 

First, let's review the basics. The Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), is carried in warm blood or sexual fluids. It infects through fragile, inflamed, bleeding or needle-pricked tissue, attacks specific T-cells in the immune system, and causes the incurable, debilitating condition known as AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome).

 

Hormonal contraceptives increase almost all known risk factors for HIV infection.

 

Studies have found that hormonal contraceptives “alter the microenvironment of the female”12 and boost the cell count of those specific cells that HIV uses to infect and proliferate (HIV co-receptor CCR5 in cervical CD4+ T lymphocytes).

 

What is more, a progesterone side effect known to American women as “breakthrough bleeding,” is caused when hormonal contraceptives excessively thicken the uterine lining. The large, bleeding surface of the uterus creates an ideal site for HIV infection.

 

Progesterone also has an immunosuppressant effect, which means that women using hormonal contraceptives have less in the way of natural defenses against HIV and other STDs, such as chlamydial infection or genital herpes (HSV-2).13, 14 In one study, “HSV-2 infection itself more than tripled the risk of HIV infection.”15

 

In the vagina, increased blood and the independent hormonal effects of the Pill eliminate the natural pH acid protection against infection. What is more, a famous study of rhesus macaques found that hormonal contraceptives thin the vaginal walls and markedly increase SIV infection (the monkey equivalent of HIV).16 Vaginal dryness, another side effect of hormonal contraceptives, is not only painful but also makes one prone to tears and abrasions—fertile sites for infection.

 

One study points out, “On a cellular level, hormonal contraceptives have been associated with cervical and vaginal inflammation.”17

 

Further, hormonal birth control causes the fragile cervical tissue to grow beyond its natural bounds and replace what would normally be thick, protective membrane. This “cervical ectopy” is dangerous because the cervix's thin surface is the main site of HIV infection.18

 

Given all these different ways that hormonal contraception promotes HIV/AIDS infection, it is not at all surprising that several studies show women on the pill, Depo-Provera, etc., are more likely to be infected with not just one, but several variants or strains of HIV. This “in turn leads to higher levels of viral replication and more rapid HIV-1 disease progression.”19, 20, 21

 

Women on hormonal contraceptives are not only more likely to contract HIV/AIDS, they are also more likely to pass it along to their sexual partners. The three studies which focused on “the impact of hormonal contraception on cervical shedding of the cell-associated virus”22 all found that HIV-positive women on hormonal contraceptives are far more likely shed HIV in their body fluids. High-dose pill users were over 12 times more likely to shed the HIV virus than women not using contraception, low-dose users were almost 4 times more likely, and Depo-Provera users were 3 times more likely.23

 

The Pill Pushers Push Back

 

Some dismiss out of hand the impressive body of scientific research demonstrating a Pill/HIV link. They quote from the handful of studies and highly selective trials which claim to find “no increase in HIV risk among users of oral contraceptives and Depo-Provera.”24

 

The problem with many of these studies, such as Mati et al. 1995, Kapiga et al. 1998, and Sinei et al. 1996 is that they were conducted with and through “family planning clinics.” Since the chief business of these clinics is the promotion, sale, and distribution of contraceptives, the possibility of bias is undeniable. Who would trust Marlboro to monitor a study on the link between cigarettes and cancer?

 

Moreover, the handful of studies that deny a link between hormonal contraception and increased risk of contracting HIV are dwarfed by the many studies that have not only found such a link, but convincingly explained precisely what it is about such contraception that contributes to the spread of the disease.

 

Yet population control groups continue to lobby for more contraception, not less. Take Dr. Willard Cates, president of the Institute for Family Health of Family Health International (FHI), one of the major purveyors of hormonal contraception to the developing world. Wrote Cates to the Journal of American Medical Association, “Preventing unintended pregnancies among HIV-infected women who do not currently wish to become pregnant is an important and cost effective way of preventing new HIV infections of infants. … More must be done to ensure access to safe and effective contraception for HIV-infected women.”25

 

Obviously, FHI's concern here is less to prevent the infection of preborn infants, than to continue to contracept as many women as possible with your tax dollars and mine. What the organization refuses to admit, however, is that by doing so it is arguably contributing to the spread of the HIV virus.

 

How many lives are being lost because we continue to ship boatloads of hormonal contraceptives to a continent and to countries laboring under an HIV/AIDS pandemic? Isn't it time that we stopped?

 

See the full report in the upcoming May/June Issue of the PRI Review.

 

Source: http://www.pop.org/content/the-pills-deadly-affair-with-hivaids-1199

[Paragon]

Raula, this is an interesting article. Thanks for sharing.

[faarah22]

anyone who wants to know about aids should read this article.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/colonialism-in-africa-helped-launch-the-hiv-epidemic-a-century-ago/2012/02/21/gIQAyJ9aeR_story.html?tid=pm_pop.

[raula]

^^nothing much new there...just the etiology of the disease & its spread to other parts of the world. however, the etiology of the disease is at most some of the fundamental divergence of view between advocates & denialist societies in HIV/AIDS.

[faarah22]

am not getting you raula? are you implying it's created by gaalo to depopulate africa or......just the read the paper well. sometimes we give other human beings way much power and consideration. when simple truth is most things are outside human power and evolve in their own distinct ways.

[raula]

faarah22;822541 wrote:

am not getting you raula? are you implying it's created by gaalo to depopulate africa or......just the read the paper well. sometimes we give other human beings way much power and consideration. when simple truth is most things are outside human power and evolve in their own distinct ways.

..walaalo..first if the virus ensued from its own natural cause as to how it spread/hence referring to the etiology of the disease/virus...then its contradicting for me to imply or infer for that matter that its was created by gaalo for whatever reason one being depopulation..right? However, i was merely pointing out that the origin & or etiology of the virus/disease spectrum is usually the (again) core difference for those scientists that study & advocate for the disease & the denialists who range from logics of the origin/etiology, "a white man's tool to depopulate Africa/some parts of the world", et cetera (hence my opinion of what the article was about). OR i misinterpreted it?

 

So brother Farah-my opinion is neither in favor nor contrary to what has been established already!