HIV in India and Why Science Lies
By Repair Man Jack Posted in Foreign Affairs — Comments (3) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
The UN has finally produced an unabashed piece of positive news. There are 6.8 million fewer people in the world suffering from HIV than they had previously estimated.
Revised figures in the latest UNAIDS study slashed an estimate for total infections this time last year to 32.7 million from 39.5 million cases, the number given in the agency's 2006 report.
"The single biggest reason for the reduction in global HIV prevalence figures in the past year was the recent revision in India after an intensive reassessment of the epidemic in that country," UNAIDS said in its report.
While I’m glad a lot fewer people are dying of an awful disease, I’m wondering whether this information was known amongst the scientific elite before George W. Bush committed $15B of assets from the American taxpayer to fighting HIV in the 3rd world. Normally, such cynicism would seem out of place, but I’m far from the only big-blue meanie questioning the estimating methodologies employed by UNAIDS.
When cost elements associated with the fight against the disease are costed on a per hospital unit or a per patient basis, inflating the numbers of patients inflates the budgetary requirements submitted to the UN, President Bush and Irish Rock Star Bono for funding. Those of a cynical mind towards such estimates acerbically opine that the desire for money and power is driving the numbers presented for survey to funding sources.
"There was a tendency toward alarmism, and that fit perhaps a certain fundraising agenda," said Helen Epstein, author of "The Invisible Cure: Africa, the West, and the Fight Against AIDS." "I hope these new numbers will help refocus the response in a more pragmatic way." – WaPo (11/19)
Ms. Epstein probably remembers well how badly the advocacy for homeless people fared after Mitch Snyder lied to the media and badly overestimated America’s homeless population and its death rate. She wants to avoid the same sort of backlash with regards to HIV activism and funding. Ms. Epstein is savvy enough to know that powerful leaders don’t fund what reasonable advisors disbelieve.
The UN disputes that the decline is entirely driven by the exposure of methodological legerdemain and error. Dr. Kevin De Cock attributes a portion of the reduction to the good, hard work of UN agencies like his own: the WHO. Not everyone in the field of pandemic medicine shares Dr. De Cock’s view of this being a good news story. Some of his colleagues disagree, and forget to do so respectfully.
"They've finally got caught with their pants down," said Dr. Jim Chin, a clinical professor of epidemiology at the University of California at Berkeley. Chin is a former WHO staffer and the author of "The AIDS Pandemic: The Collision of Epidemiology with Political Correctness."
He said that it was difficult to tell whether the lowered numbers were evidence that AIDS treatment and prevention strategies were working, or whether the decrease was just due to a natural correction of previous overestimates.
Even with the revised figures, "the numbers are probably still on the high side," said Daniel Halperin, an AIDS epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health. - AP (11/19)
Dr. Halperin makes a telling observation, later on in the AP article cited above. He points out that societal concerns, such as anti-Global Warming advocacy and HIV research fight one another for attention in a compassion trade space. He suggests that HIV-related activities compete against other global threats for attention and for funding. A check to Al Gore’s Global Warming activity could be an economic substitute good for a dollar spent on HIV funding.
"On the one hand, it would be a mistake to radically decrease funding for HIV," Halperin said. "But on the other hand, why not put more money into family planning or climate change?"
Thus the response that HIV activists give to Dr. Chin and Dr. Halperin is predictable and in line with what Dr, Halperin would probably predict it to be; given the logic of his statement above. HIV not only has to be evil; it has to be worse than Global Warming and Al Qaeda for good measure.
"We are still failing to respond to the crisis," said Dr. Paul Zeitz, executive director of the Global AIDS Alliance. "The overall prevalence of AIDS may have stabilized, but we are still seeing millions of new infections and it is not time yet to step back from this battle."
Now given the recent “revisions” in data for UNAIDS and by the US government regarding global temperature ranges, am I cynical for believing that the HIV activists knew good and well that the world had nowhere near 39.5 million HIV sufferers long before this information hit the top of the Drudge Report?
That they can't establish a pan-global methodology. That tells me the results should not be aggregated in the first place.
“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men."
Every time Mitch Snyder was asked about the number of homeless in America, he would answer that he did not know. He would, if pressed, make an "educated guess" as to the number of homeless but would emphasize that this number was only a guess.
It was the MSM that turned his guess into fact by ignoring his qualifications.
I was involved in New York State projects involving homeless veterans during this period and found that, although Mitch Snyder was often wrong, he did not lie.
Tom Bethell has written several articles in The American Spectator over the last several years that cast doubt on the UN's and the WHO's methodology and motivations re: AIDS in Africa.
As I recall his argument, AIDS tests are rarely administered due to lack of funds. Instead, health care workers have a list of symptoms and a point system for assigning a diagnosis of AIDS: diarrhea, skin lesions, and so on.
Problem is, many of the symptoms are shared with cholera, malaria and other diseases endemic to Africa, leading Bethell to argue that AIDS is grossly overdiagnosed. One piece of evidence is that the epidemiology of the disease in Africa, especially the ease of transmission in the heterosexual population, is at odds with what is observed in the West.
Bethell and his crowd are skeptical of the connection between HIV and AIDS; I don't know about all that, but I also don't implicitly trust U.N.-funded scientists.
There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life. - Frank Zappa