alex

From the Boston Globe, at:
http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/06/20/estimates_on_hiv_called_too_high?pg=3

" Chin said he thinks the global rate is inflated by 25 percent
to 40 percent, while two US health officials working on
AIDS said they think the global numbers may be 50 percent
inflated. The two spoke on condition of anonymity.

Among their reasons:

In a slum of the Chennai district in India, a high-risk area for
transmission of HIV because of prostitutes and drug users, a
recent household survey found 0.2 percent HIV prevalence.
The nationwide rate is 0.8 percent, or 4 million people. Ghys
acknowledged: "It's difficult to say what is going on in India.
In India, there's always a great deal of uncertainty in those
estimates. Are we sure it's 0.8 percent? The honest answer
is no, we are not sure."

A recent household survey in Burkina Faso put the national
estimate at 1.9 percent; the UN's most recent estimate puts
the rate at 7 percent. In Africa, other recent surveys showing
significantly lower rates have been in Zambia, South Africa,
Mali, and Ghana.

Rates also were lowered by a third in Zimbabwe because of
significant numbers of faulty HIV tests.

Several years ago, UNAIDS estimated that up to 60 percent
of the Angolan military was HIV positive. Dr. Richard Shaffer,
head of the US Department of Defense's HIV/AIDS Prevention
Program, said in an interview the estimate was "nowhere near
close to that. It's 6 to 7 percent. They based the earlier number
on a small sample, which included people outside the military,
and extrapolated that to the military as a whole."

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, HIV prevalence in adults
aged 15 to 49 in Uganda was estimated as high as 30 percent;
now HIV prevalence is estimated at 5 percent. But now many
no longer believe the 30 percent figure, raising questions about
the true impact of Uganda's much-touted prevention program.
Said Ghys: "If we recast our estimates, it wasn't 30 percent,
it was maybe 22 or something."

Earlier this year, the US government announced its first
substantial grants in President Bush's multibillion-dollar plan
to fight AIDS. The news release cited a 15 percent HIV
prevalence rate in Kenya and a 6 percent rate in Haiti, even
though US-funded surveys in both countries had recently
concluded that the rate was at least half those figures. "

c spinner

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I wonder what figure we would have for the incidence of HIV/AIDS in USA if
we HAD TO rely on studies and provided by Zimbabwean or North Korean
doctors and researchers ... :-)

Incidentally, there are more NEW cases of HIV infection a year in New York
city ALONE (or Los Angeles) than there are in half of the over 50 African countries COMBINED ...


Gosh.
I hope that no-one still accepts our intelligence without verification.
And our "incontrovertible evidence" may need a second look.
[Unfortunately, thousands of kids who were alive with life
last year are dead - on the strength of the integrity of
those intelligence reports and wilful "incontrovertible
evidence" lies. Yet we do not hear (unequivocal) expressions
of regret or remorse coming from those responsible ..
Now, if those dead kids were OUR own ...]

There are many books available to one interested in reading about
prejudice, bias and racism inherent in the scientific research area and in
the learned presentations by world-renown scientists. As well as in the
reports appearing in our media.


Look at the mode of our operation this way:
We (and especially the drug-manufacturing companies) presented the inflated
'intelligence'. We scared the living S* out of the Africans - with all that
orchestrated by the duplicitous, bleeding-heart white, despicable liberals.
We scared the clueless African LEADERS to rush into submitting the Africans
to be used as lab rats to test drugs for whites who do not want the tests.
[And of course, as if to contain the spread of any fallout from
the diabolical experiments on humans, we maintain strict controls
on travel by the Africans to our western countries.
Compare the controls faced by Africans regarding issuance of needed
travel do***ents to western cuntries to, until
recently, almost no controls experienced by europeans wishing
to travel. Yet the wealt of the Africans is more critical in
maintaining their "way of life" as they know it in the European
countries and USA.

And NO. We control the movement of those natives. BUT,
we ship their wealth freely out of Africa - to the tune of several
$billion A DAY. And we would KILL any native who would inhibit our
operations. Remember Lumumba?
However, there is a class of natives we 'invite' to travel
comparatively freely.
They may be viewed to be of strategic (social security)
importance to us. [More on this later]
Indeed, we allow, comparatively FREELY, the shipment of their
certified-wholesome pre-**** African kids into ***-slavery in
Europe, Israel and USA.]
Back to the mode of operation for condemning human 'lab rats' in Africa. By
using the lies and scare stories and by appealing to ideals of (faux)
morality and contrived 'humanitarian concerns' for the welfare of those
barbarians, we achieved our goals. If it is later revealed that we lied
(and if we cannot plausibly deny it), then we will lay the blame on faulty
intelligence
(thus claiming that the users of the KNOWN faulty data are
blameless - if they are white)
and we will insist - with deadly force - that the disgruntled and the
wronged must forget the past, forget about charges of crimes against
humanity in our white-controlled courts, and live with the effects
(as if WE, the civilized whites, ever forget or try to live
with the effects of the crimes when we ARE wronged or THINK that
we were wronged.)

Till next time that we have an ulterior agenda to push. Repeat.

Does all this sound very much like the happenings and mode of operation
during the Iraq aggression? Vietnam? Panama? Tuskeegee? Grenada? ....
Eugenics?

It is a case of windfall profits Vs human life set in an environment of
white superiority:
Western oil companies have their disposable barbarians fabulously oil-rich
Iraq and Nigeria. Western drug-companies have their disposable barbarians
in fabulously wealthy Africa and the rest of the world.


....................

There are some easy reading that African scientist/researchers and policy
makers may find curious and perhaps sobering:
"The Coming Plague", Laurie Garrett,
Penguin Books, NY, 1994
"In the Name of Science", Andrew Goliszek,
St Martin's Press, NY 2003

............. ......
Comment:
India churns out 3 million new graduates a year from its universities and
technical institutions.
That is a goal Africa should aim for.
What is the point - and where would the graduates get jobs - if, for
instance, many of the few who graduate from Africa's institutions may be
lucky to EVER become gainfully employed?
Well. That is a difficult question. It is a fatalistic view.
At times, an intractable problem may lend itself to a better understanding
and thereby lead to options for a solution if we pose the question
differently.
For instance, how does the India provide for its graduates? How does USA
go about providing for their annual crop of new graduates? Are there times
when its graduates have a hard time finding jobs so that we can learn from
the policy statements they issue and the measures they put in motion to
address the problem? How do the Japanese provide for their graduates in
their roaring economy that is larger than that of Germany, Italy, France,
Spain, Norway, Sweden, euro-badland UK, .. ...

Many are somewhat aware of the root causes of destitution in South Africa,
Nigeria and Uganda. Let us consider the case of Kenya again.

In the effort to address the unemployment problem, there are several ills
of life in Kenya, and in the African countries, that would need to be
addressed simultaneously. The ills work in unison to damn the efforts that
the Kenyans make to lift themselves out of their
economic/business/political/social morass AND HENCE the ills must be
addressed in a integrated manner so as to reap the benefits of synergy.

[Have you noticed that I tend to address SEEMINGLY diverse and
divergent issues in my posts?]

A multi-pronged approach is necessary. For instance, a few days ago, a
contract in Kenya worth over US$40,000,000 was offered to Italians.
Italians get the jobs. The job could have been performed by Kenyans. And
No. There is no global reciprocity here - just one way predation. Kenyan
companies do NOT land large contracts in Italy.
Exporting Kenya.
Yet, over 65% of Kenyans are unemployed. And the rates on a loan to start a
business run at 25% (at the foreign-controlled banks) to over 50% (at the
foreign loan-sharks' microfinance institutions). We know from our
experience in USA that rates over 17% result in astronomically increasing
rates of business failures.
Whites effectively control the means of production in Kenya - and thus they
control the economic, business, political and social agenda and tempo in
Kenya. The whites also squat on millions of acres of grabbed, prime
ancestral lands of the landless, starving natives.
And the Kenyans have a senile geezer for an essentially ethnic president
who hobnobs (in the exclusive clubs set up by whites in Kenya's colonial
Kenya) with white plunderers of secret societies.
By constitution, he would be ineligible for re-election. Well. No problem.
We,
the benefiting all-powerful whites that are by divine
right, supreme over all barbarians,
just rammed through needed constitutional changes to their constitution
that will keep him in office.
(O, Yes. A short while, we rammed through constitutional
changes which removed the previous president who became
unwillimg to acquiesce silently to white man's schemes
on Kenya. Why do Kenyans need a constitution?
Well. Let the sleeping dogs lie.)
And we will fund this president's future re-election campaigns.
[Money buys victories in the elections in USA.
Money buys phony (foreigners') victories in the 'elections'
in Kenya.

Yes. The natives are as sovereign in Kenya as the Iraqi people currently
are in Iraq.

And the outlook is not encouraging: They may not reverse the quickening
march unto darkness and death that was set in motion by an unsavory
character that dubbed himself Jomo Kenyatta. Unless ...]


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alex

"C Spinner" <cspinner@email.com> schreef in bericht
news:s7toe0ddi06afuosa4kq21jf0ti0rg4k3b@4ax.com...

Actually, it is much worse than a couple of bad doctors.

The screening tests used (ELISA) are basically highly unspecific
in Africa. Africa is home to 90% of all the world's malaria cases.
Guess what causes false positive ELISA screening tests:
malaria, pregnancy, leprosy, etc. There are 60 or more known
factors that make screening tests come out false positive, and
many of them are endemic in Africa, but not in Europe, North
America, Australia. Therefore, what may be a specific test
there, in Africa is wildly inaccurate.

Alex

danian

I don't suppose it matters to you that malaria is not endemic to the
whole of Africa. Let us not for a moment let a fact in the way of a good
theory.

alex

"Danian" <daniani@jordi.net> schreef in bericht
news:ccifd3$fkg$1@ctb-nnrp2.saix.net...

Sorry, but that's nonsense.

Malaria is endemic in the areas that have the highest
"AIDS" incidence - East, Central and Southern Africa.
There is little malaria in North Africa, and low numbers
of positive ELISAs.

http://www.mara.org.za/mapsinfo.htm#Distribution

Knock yourself out. It's not a perfect match, but a
pretty good one. Especially notice that malria is
in South Africa is limited to the eastern part of
the country, and that's also where the highest
number of positive ELISAs occur.

I don't know how long antibodies to malaria
stay in the system, but it is pheasible that people
returning from high malaria areas are still carrying
them in their system.

Alex

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| > Uncle spin
| > ....
| > > There are some easy reading that African scientist/researchers
| > > and policy makers may find curious and perhaps sobering:
| > > "The Coming Plague", Laurie Garrett,
| > > Penguin Books, NY, 1994
| > > "In the Name of Science", Andrew Goliszek,
| > > St Martin's Press, NY 2003
| > >

The authors are seasoned researchers in their fields.
Why should Africa be concerned about the tests performed on Africans by
whites?
Should Africa take the 'goodwill' of whites (of the slave-trading,
race-exterminating, resource-plundering notoriety) for granted?
After reading the book by Goliszek the reader will view the HIV/AIDS drug/
vaccine experiments in Africa from a fresh and perhaps sombre perspective.
Indeed, one would have expected an uproar to erupt and rage in Africa when
the idea of the tests was suggested. Stangely, even Africa's diaspora in
USA which is presumably aware of the dangers, was silent.

The book by Garrett has over 100 pages of notes and references at the back
which will be valuable to interested readers and researchers too. Why are
whites resistant to be used as 'lab rats' in tests for which they seek
Africans who cannot afford current HIV/AIDS drugs - let alone the exotic
ones being developed and tested?
What can go wrong?
Why should Africa be wary of the eagerness by whites to carry out their
tests on Africans of island Africa which can easily be quarantined and its
inhabitants sanitized?
Viruses. Parasites. Bacteria. Let us start by peeping into the world of
microbes and how they mutate and get the better of us at times. Here is a
well-presented extract regarding the resourceful bacteria:

'"... emergences of drug resistance usually took place in communities
of social and economic deprivation." Poor people all over the world were
more likely to self - medicate, purchasing antibiotics either on the black
market or over the counter, or borrowing leftovers from relatives. Without
consulting often costly physicians, and certainly in the absence of
expensive tests that could determine the drug sensitivities of the
bacterial strains with which they were infected, the world's poor were
compelled to guess what drug might cure the disease that was ravaging their
children or themselves.

'This state of affairs guaranteed that a sizable percentage of the human
population were walking petri dishes, providing ideal conditions for
accelerated bacterial mutation, natural selection, and evolution.

'Whether one looked in Spain,' South Africa, the United States, Romania,
Pakistan, Brazil, or anywhere else, the basic principle held true: overuse
or misuse of antibiotics, particularly in small children and hospitalized
patients, prompted emergence of resistant mutant organisms.

'The basic problem with the antibiotic approach to control of pathogenic
bacteria was evolution. Long before Homo sapiens discovered the chemicals,
yeast, fungi, and rival bacteria had been making antibiotics and spewing
the compounds around newly claimed turf to ensure that rival species
couldn't invade their niches.

'The rivals, of course, had long since evolved ways to rapidly mutate to
withstand such chemical attacks. So rivals would make different chemicals,
their foes would mutate again, and the cycle repeated itself countless
times over the millennia. Humans simply accelerated the natural process by
exposing billions of microbes at a time to drugs derived from the natural
chemicals, and doing so with less lethal efficiency than had the microbial
competitors in their ancient microscopic turf fight.

'Often the genetic changes the microbes underwent in order to overcome
the antibiotics offered unexpected additional advantages, enhancing the
bacteria's ability to withstand wider temperature variations, outwit more
elements of the host immune system, or kill host cells with greater
certainty." '

Garrett, "The Coming Plague", page 419


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The 'bad doctor' cry may as well be the cheap (racist) defense that we will
mount if such data casts us in an unfavorable light.
However, the medical schools in Africa generally are, by design, at par
with those in Europe. Many African doctors (and perhaps almost all doctors
in some countries) do complete their mandatory residency period at premier
western hospitals. And the African doctors and nurses are in high demand in
the Europe of the indolent, high-school-dropouts and skinheads. Hence the
raging 'brain drain' debate.


True.
There are several incidents and cases do***ented in the book by Garrett
whereby, poor design of experiments, poor sample controls and contamination
of samples led to conclusions that were faulty; and that such conclusions,
when widely reported, do at times buttress certain racist prejudices that
may be acted upon. There are examples of such occurrences in the case of
Ebola, Lassa, HIV, ...

My comment regarding Zimbabwean or North Korean doctors was meant to
suggest that the interpretation of data and the conclusions advanced by
workers in the scientific arena - as well as our willingness to accept the
findings - are not entirely insulated from the political and racist
pre-dispositions of humans.

It is tempting for us dismiss such faulty experiments and conclusions by
insisting that eventually such errors are corrected.
After all, didn't science thrive with ether and the indivisible
atom for a long while?
But at times such faulty conclusions are used to justify policies and laws
which have a disastrous and even deadly impact on the lives of millions.
The books narrate such examples. And my reference to 'faulty intelligence'
and 'incontrovertible evidence' also seeks to highlight just how deadly
life can get when faulty data or faulty experiments or faulty conclusion or
even 'doctored' data is relied upon to justify actions.

Do some researchers cook up 'scientific' data so as to show certain desired
results?
Yes. Some cigarette companies are known to do that. Many stunted
researchers in the IQ tests arena are known, desperate examples of
dedicated nitwits feverishly searching for a holy grail of racial
supremacy.


=========================
I may present in the NG some interesting extracts from the books now and
then. Here in an interesting aside though about the troubles os some
Belgian medical personnel and nuns in Zaire:

'Sister Romana lay in one bed, vomiting blood, bleeding from her gums,
suffering acute diarrhea, and groaning in delirium. The elderly Father
Germain Lootens was similarly stricken ...

'Lacking medical skills, Sisters Genoveva, Marcella, and Mariette turned to
the only weapon in their armamentarium: prayer. For hours on end the
grief-stricken nuns and the three remaining priests prayed over the
sickbeds of their friends and colleagues, hoping their devout entreaties
would bring a miracle.

'Despite their prayers, Sister Romana died at noon on October 2. Word of
her death, radioed by the Yambuku staff to the Lisala Mission, produced
both tremendous grief and justifiable fear among her old friends. Just six
hours later, Father Lootens also passed away and this threw the surviving
Belgian missionaries into such despair and terror that a visiting team of
Kinshasa scientists found the group virtually paralyzed by anxiety.'

Garrett, "The Coming Plague", page 107


Poor things. [The curse of the spirits, the rulers of the forestss]

Dear reader, to save your carcass from this kind of fate when you are in
the Congo, try the real thing - the spirits of the ancestors of the natives
of the Congo.

[After all, what is the difference: You beseech your foreign god(s),
you may live; you may die. I beseech the dieties and the spirits of
my ancestors, I may live; I may die. The difference is exactly the
same, right?
On the other hand, you may wish to play it safe (hedge) by
beseeching the dieties in turn ...]


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gmcarter

snip...>>


Sorry, but the false positive ELISA from malaria cross reaction is
nonsense. We were discussing this on Kenya-AIDS then you ran away.

George M. Carter

***
Hello all--

It's getting a bit technical here so please read if you enjoy the
deeper debate--some important points ARE relevant to the group, that
is to say that adequate screening for HIV needs to be a part and
parcel of testing procedures.

At 08:01 PM 7/4/2004 +0200, you wrote:
snip...>


No, dearie, I believe more in science than I do psychotics who spout
drivel and distort data to suit whatever peculiar agenda they may
have. I would give you some food happily if you were hungry but I
wouldn't give you any money.


Indeed, I did not mention this report since I had not read it--but
thanks for posting it! An excellent report all should read closely and
it will become clear to one and all that you selectively use bits,
sorta like Rush Limbaugh, to make some point that is completely at
odds with what the do***ent says! In other words, you make crap up to
support your delusion. Indeed, you will note on the second page of the
do***ent that it lists a series of ELISA tests by different companies
that test for ANTIBODY to HIV-1. This is different from testing for
p24. Do you understand that there is a distinction? Do you understand
what is used in initial screening assays? Source: http://www.who.int/bct/Main_areas_of_work/BTS/HIV_Diagnostics/Evaluation_reports/Operational%20Characteristics_HIV%20Report9_10.pdf


Ah, one might note that in Africa, many nations have
a) a HIGH prevalence and
b) use of MULTIPLE assays is undertaken where western blot is not
feasible.

And, of course, as seen below, you elided the sentence that finishes
this paragraph as it was inconvenient to your argument.

Not in an area with high prevalence. Zimbabwe is an area of high
prevalence. Not when an ELISA is repeated. Now, if you say that a
person with few risk factors is tested with a single ELISA and is then
declared HIV+, this indeed CAN be a terrible misdiagnosis--and I quite
agree that it is very possibly happening. But unfortunately, the fact
there are such diagnoses does not serve as a basis for arguing that
HIV does not exist or cause AIDS. Did you ask Pasquarelli?

In an area of high prevalence and where there is more than one test
done. And, you add in the clinical presentation, it's unfortunately
likely that a person with 3 positive ELISAs has HIV. A virus that
exists and causes AIDS.

The "malaria" connection is a false one. There IS no major issue with
cross reactivity, much though denialists would like to make a mountain
out of a molehill...see below.


To the contrary! ELISA is a GENERAL test, as the different URLs
attests (which I guess you summarily dismissed since they conflict
with your worldview). It can be used to identify a variety of
infections. As such, it may be used to test for different proteins,
and in general is used to look for antibodies that are generated as a
result of infection to HIV (IgG, IgM) or can be used to evaluate the
presence of p24. Do you comprehend the distinction? In either case,
however, one is testing for the presence of HIV infection.


What they showed was that the incidence of HIV in this population
declined (happily) from 33.35/100,000 in 1987 to 0.95/100,000 in 1995.
The do***ent is from 1997.

The table is not referenced in the text (maybe I missed it?), so it
is unclear what generation of ELISA they used to test the blood.
Indeed, a false positive rate on a SINGLE test may be high; single
tests in a low prevalence population have a low specificity. No one
argues with that point which is really all the table suggests.

Ah, there were NOT 25,562 people tested. There were 25,562 blood
donations. We have no idea how any people donated more than once. To
rely on this one table, not fully discussed in the text provided but a
text that does not dispute the connection between HIV and AIDS by any
means, is disingenuous in the extreme. It is also just ridiculous,
again, because use of a single ELISA is not recommended anywhere by
anyone.

Indeed, the reality is that they did find two HIV+ blood donations
upon REPEAT testing and confirming follow up. Which means these two
people in this ONE study of blood donations in a low prevalence area
were in fact HIV infected. So to use this as part of a basis for
denialist argument is just ridiculous.


LOL...you are distorting the data to suit your own denialist ends.
First, in terms of sensitivity, there is no effect. If a test is
negative by ELISA, the chances are a person IS negative, unless they
have recently been infected and the body has not yet generated
antibodies. In terms of specificity in a LOW prevalence area, a SINGLE
test may indeed be a false positive. In the WHO do***ent you
thoughtfully cite, they note:

"When a single screening assay is used for testing in a population
with a very low prevalence of HN infection, the probability that a
person is infected when a positive test result is obtained (i.e., the
positive predictive value) is very low, since the majority of people
with positive results are not infected. This problem occurs even when
a test with high specificity is used. Accuracy can be improved if a
second confirmatory test is used to retest all those samples found
positive by the first test. Those found negative by the test are
considered negative for antibodies to HIV ."

Further, if you read on, you will see that this WHO do***ent makes
specific recommendations for repeat testing. They use a HIGH standard
of presumption for blood donations or organ transplants--a single
ELISA, consider it positive. Don't risk contaminating the blood
supply. By contrast, for an individual, they use a HIGH standard for
assuring that an individual is confirmed infected. In the absence of a
western blot, THREE positive ELISAs are considered "HIV+" while 2 and
one negative are "indeterminate." One can use other sequelae, like
clinical effects, CD4 count if available (and increasingly, lower cost
technologies are making this more widely available) or an algorithm
based on white blood cell count to establish an HIV infection. And
honey, people DO find out TOO damn fast if they are HIV+, especially
in developing nations, where progression may be more rapid (esp. in
the context of parasitic infections pushing to a Th2 immune response).

Sadly, it seems seductively convincing until you deconstruct your
nonsense...and until you watch people die of AIDS. The fact that such
weak-kneed evidence is used with a result that it influences people
like Mbeki which in turn results in reduced efforts to help treat
people which in turn causes increased suffering and death that could
be avoided is simply despicable.

It's bad enough that pharmaceutical companies block access to ARV
through lawsuits and horrible trade agreements that corrupt or
ignorant governments are bullied and bribed into signing, pushed by
the US government and its noxious Trade Representative, that zealot
Zoellick. It's bad enough that simple interventions like food, water,
a multivitamin and more vigorous exploration of traditional medicines
are denied because of corruption, diverting resources to usurious
World Bank and IMF debt payments, and the general bigotry of some in
medical science against these inexpensive interventions. It's hard
enough when local resources, healthcare infrastructure and trained
personnel are not strengthened because of corruption, greed,
shortsighted stupidity and ignorance. That good positions are taken by
people dying of AIDS or fleeing to better jobs in Europe and America.

But to have your denialist crap piled on top of that is just too
sickening for words. I notice you snipped out the note on your dead
denialist buddy Pasquarelli. How many more men, women and children
have you helped hasten to their deaths by promoting this psychobabble?
Perhaps we'll get to meet them when we die.

George M. Carter

***
Malaria causing false positives on HIV tests:

From: Bennett (njb35@spam.ac.uk)
Subject: Re: HIV and malarial X-reactivity
View: Complete Thread (8 articles)
Original Format
Newsgroups: misc.health.aids
Date: 1999/03/09

Eric Bullington wrote in message
<7c29n6$4hi@sjx-ixn5.ix.netcom.com>...

Er, yeah. Looks like I mixed two different concepts (it had been a
busy day ;-) "HIV" antibodies being produced to malarial antigens. HIV
tests cross-reacting with anti-malarial antibodies.


Yes - since they found little correlation between malaria and HIV I
concluded from this that the malaria infections did not affect the
outcome of the HIV tests - otherwise far more of the malarial patients
would have come up HIV+. The papers didn't look specifically for it,
but that conclusion can be drawn implicitly from the fact that they
could only find HIV in a minority of malarial patients. If
false-positives were affecting test results significantly that would not have happened.


Hmmm. Aren't there better insecticides these days, or are they priced
out of the reach of these people? :-/ Apparently every organism on
the planet has DDT in it in some amount (WARNING - HIGH SCHOOL FACT ONLY!).


It wasn't - but it brought up another point I notcied. There is an
interaction between malaria and HIV - apparently those infected with
malaria AND HIV don't get such a bad reaction to malaria. Since a lot
of the damage from malaria results from the immune response to the
infection, and HIV attenuates the immune system, it sort of makes
sense.

The paper I was referring to was

******************* JAMA 1988 Jan 22-29;259(4):545-9

The association between malaria, blood transfusions, and HIV
seropositivity in a pediatric population in Kinshasa, Zaire.

Greenberg AE, Nguyen-Dinh P, Mann JM, Kabote N, Colebunders RL,
Francis H, Quinn TC, Baudoux P, Lyamba B, Davachi F, et al Malaria
Branch, Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta, GA 30333.

Since Plasmodium falciparum malaria is a frequent cause of anemia
among African children, and blood transfusions, unscreened for human
immunodeficiency virus (HIV) antibody, are used frequently in the
treatment of children with severe malaria, the relationships between
malaria, transfusions, and HIV seropositivity were investigated in a
pediatric population in Kinshasa, Zaire. In a cross-sectional survey
of 167 hospitalized children, 112 (67%) had malaria, 78 (47%) had
received transfusions during the current hospitalization, and 21 (13%)
were HIV seropositive. Ten of the 11 seropositive malaria patients had
received transfusions during the current hospitalization;
pretransfusion specimens were available for four of these children and
were seronegative. Of all blood transfusions, 87% were administered to
malaria patients, and there was a strong dose-response association
between transfusions and HIV seropositivity. A review of 1000
emergency ward records demonstrated that 69% of transfusions were
administered to malaria patients, and 97% of children who received
transfusions had pretransfusion hematocrits of 0.25 or less (less than
or equal to 25%). The treatment of malaria with blood transfusions is
an important factor in the exposure of Kinshasa children to HIV
infection.

PMID: 3275815, UI: 88091263 ******************

It astonishes me that so much of this data has been available for a
decade, and yet this particular myth about HIV/malaria x-reactivity is
still propogated. I ought to mention that I found not a single piece
of evidence that the HIV tests were affected by malaria infection out
of those 46 refs. There _were_ a few papers that suggested something
in their titles, but no abstracts were available.

****************** N Engl J Med 1986 Mar 6;314(10):647-8 Antibodies to
HTLV-III/LAV in Venezuelan patients with acute malarial infections.
Volsky DJ, Wu YT, Stevenson M, Dewhurst S, Sinangil F, Merino F,
Rodriguez L, Godoy G Publication Types: Letter PMID: 3511375, UI:
86118517

N Engl J Med 1986 Aug 14;315(7):457-8 Possible nonspecific association
between malaria and HTLV-III/LAV. Biggar RJ Publication Types: Letter
PMID: 3016540, UI: 86284878

BMJ 1988 Jul 2;297(6640):30-1 Relation between falciparum malaria and
HIV seropositivity in Ndola, Zambia. Simooya OO, Mwendapole RM, Siziya
S, Fleming AF Tropical Diseases, Research Centre, Ndola, Zambia. PMID:
3044486, UI: 88310159

Lancet 1992 Dec 5;340(8832):1412-3 Spurious malarial antibodies in HIV
infection. Parry JV, Richmond J, Edwards N, Noone A Publication Types:
Letter Comments: Comment in: Lancet 1993 Feb 13;341(8842):441-2 PMID:
1360116, UI: 93078552 ******************

The last one also goes the wrong way, since the fact that HIV
infection might produce anti-malarial antibodies is irrelevant.

I'm entirely non-plussed as to HOW the Perth group can back up their
hypothesis that the HIV tests are flawed. Some of their refs I found
yesterday, and IN NO WAY could the conclusion be drawn that malaria
was confounding the HIV results! I've looked through a few of their
other refs this morning, and it's completely laughable - they quote
out of context, and ignore results from the same paper that go against
their views!

Example - in their June 93 paper

In drug addicts there is a strong association between high serum
globulin levels and a positive HIV antibody test and this was the
"only variable which remained significant in a logistic regression
model"; (52)

Ref 52 is the following

******************** Alcohol Clin Exp Res 1988 Oct;12(5):687-90

Specificity of antibody tests for human immunodeficiency virus in
alcohol and parenteral drug abusers with chronic liver disease.

Novick DM, Des Jarlais DC, Kreek MJ, Spira TJ, Friedman SR, Gelb AM,
Stenger RJ, Schable CA, Kalyanaraman VS Department of Medicine, Beth
Israel Medical Center, New York, NY 10003.

Parenteral drug abusers are at risk for acquired immunodeficiency
syndrome (AIDS), which is caused by human immunodeficiency virus
(HIV). We tested stored sera for antibody to HIV (anti-HIV) using two
enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) methods and Western blot.
The patients were parenteral drug abusers who had undergone
percutaneous liver biopsy for chronic liver disease. Current or former
alcohol abuse was noted in 88 (80%) of the 110 patients. The
sensitivities of the two ELISA tests in comparison with Western blot,
the more specific test for HIV, were 100 and 94%, respectively; the
specificities were 94 and 99%. Western blot was positive in 36 (33%)
of 110 patients. False-positive ELISA reactions for anti-HIV were seen
in five (7%) of 70 patients with negative Western blot ****yses.
Compared to true-negatives, false-positives had significantly more
years of alcohol abuse, younger ages of onset of alcohol abuse,
greater frequencies of jaundice and edema, higher levels of alkaline
phosphatase, total billirubin, total protein, and globulins, and lower
levels of serum albumin. In a stepwise logistic regression, only
hyperglobulinemia was significantly associated with a false-positive
anti-HIV. We conclude that: (a) ELISA tests for anti-HIV are useful
for screening abusers of alcohol and parenteral drugs with chronic
liver disease for HIV infection, but positive results must be
confirmed with more specific tests such as Western blot; (b)
false-positive ELISA reactions in this population are associated with
hyperglobulinemia; and (c) studies of HIV testing are needed in other
populations of patients with alcoholism or liver disease.

PMID: 3067617, UI: 89148678 *****************

Hyperglobinaemia was the only factor in FALSE-POSITIVE HIV results,
not POSITIVE HIV results, and the Perth group were using this as
evidence against WB testing when the false-positives were only found
using ELISA's and the WB's gave negative results!

This is completely disingenuous, misleading and dangerous.

Sorry if I'm spouting a little but this is the first time I've looked
into the Perth group's claims properly, and I'm not impressed at all.
I had thought that they were quoting papers that were simply
contradictory to those supporting the HIV tests, but they weren't even
doing that. This one particular article had over 160 refs, some of
them to other Perth papers, so ploughing through them is a bind - but
obviously well worthwhile if it shows this sort of scam.

Cheers

Bennett

slow eddy

You obviously haven't seen a malaria distribution map for South Africa.
Malaria is only endemic in some of the border regions. Outside of that,
there's only a slight risk of contracting malaria in this country. In other
words, it's not as if the entire eastern par of the country is full of
malaria. You're left with huge malaria-free areas that aren't accounted for
in your defense of the theory.

--

Slow Eddy

richard bonnage

That's why medical degrees from some of the former good SA universities
are no longer accepted by the Royal Medical and Dental Society. And
practical experience in South Africa may also not recognised.
Would you like to dispute this, or perhaps it's just more of your racial
rhetoric, why let facts spoil a good lie.
Richard.