[Vision2020] HIV As Bioweapon?

[Ted Moffett]

The impact of HIV infection on some populations in Africa has been
devastating, so the concept of using HIV as a "weapon" against certain
societies that are vulnerable to high rates of infection, without modern
medical treatment, is in theory not so far fetched.  I am not suggesting
that the spread of HIV in Africa was a deliberate plot to destabilize
communities and governments, to make them more open to exploitation, or to
deliberately lower population among the vulnerable and poor.  But HIV has
had an impact greater, for some years, than the killing in Africa from war,
according to the website below:

http://www.globalissues.org/article/90/aids-in-africa

Between 1999 and 2000 more people died of AIDS in Africa than in all the
wars on the continent, as mentioned by the UN Secretary General, Kofi
Annan<http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,230425,00.html>
.

The death toll is expected to have a severe impact on many economies in the
region. In some nations, it is already being felt. Life expectancies in some
nations is already decreasing rapidly, while mortality rates are increasing.

-------------------

UNAIDS estimates<http://www.globalissues.org/article/219/aids-around-the-world>for
2007 that there were roughly:


   - 32.8 million living with HIV
   - 2.5 million new infections of HIV
   - 2 million deaths from AIDS

--------------------

What is amazing is how many people believe conspiracy theories, or who
simply do not have correct medical information, about HIV and AIDS.  The
following website explores some of these conspiracy theories, and incorrect
medical beliefs, their flaws and negative effects.  The article also
mentions the HIV as bioweapon created by the US theory spread by the Soviet
block in the later 1980s.  I recall with amazement listening to Radio Moscow
(from Russia on short wave) in the later 1980s discuss HIV/AIDS as a US
created bioweapon:

http://www.thetalkingdrum.com/aids.html

>From website above:

An early version of the AIDS-as-biowarfare theory was based on the work of
two East German scientists, Jakob and  Lilli Segal, published by the Soviet
news agency Tass on March 30, 1987. The Segals claimed that HIV could not
have evolved naturally, being in fact an artificial splice between visna
virus (a retrovirus that infects the nervous system of sheep) and HTLV-1
(the first retrovirus known to infect humans). This splice, they asserted,
was created at the notorious CBW lab at Fort Detrick, Maryland, and then
tested on prisoners in the area.
-------------------
http://www.thetalkingdrum.com/aids.html

More from this website:

There is only one problem with this almost perfect fit: It is not true. The
theories on how HIV the virus that causes AIDS was purposely spliced
together in a lab wilt under scientific scrutiny. Moreover, these conspiracy
theories divert energy from the work that must  be done in the trenches if
marginalized communities are to survive this epidemic: grassroots education,
mobilizations for AIDS  prevention, and better care for people  living with
HIV. They distract from  the urgent need to focus a spotlight on the
life-and-death issue of AIDS  prevention and on the crucial struggle against
a racist and profit driven public health system that is responsible for tens
of  thousands of unnecessary deaths. After more than nine years doing AIDS
education in prison, I have found these conspiracy myths to be the main
internal obstacle in terms of prisoners' consciousness to implementing risk
reduction strategies. A recent study at the University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill, confirmed that African Americans who believe in the conspiracy
theories are significantly less likely to use condoms or to be tested for
HIV. Put bluntly: The false conspiracy theories are themselves a
contributing factor to the terrible toll of unnecessary AIDS deaths. What's
the use, believers ask, of making all the hard choices to avoid spreading or
contracting the disease if the government is going to find a way to infect
people anyway? And what's the point of all the hassles of safer sex, or all
the  inconvenience of not sharing  needles if HIV can be spread, as many
conspiracy theorists claim, by casual contact such as sneezing or handling
dishes? The core of the mind-set that undermines prevention efforts is
"denial." People whose activities have put them at risk of HIV are often
petrified and  turn to conspiracy theories as a hip and seemingly militant
rationale for not confronting their own dangerous practices.  At the same
time, such  theories provide an apparently simple and satisfying alternative
to the complex challenge of dealing with the myriad of social, behavioral,
and medical factors that propel the epidemic. While convinced that humans
did not design HIV, my main concern here is not to disprove the conspiracy
theories. Neither do I attempt to solve the problem of the origins of AIDS
or even review the many different theories and approaches to that question.
The  origin of this disease, as of many others, is likely to remain unsolved
for years to come.  Rather, the article examines the validity of one set of
theories being widely propagated to prisoners and to African American
communities: that HIV was deliberately spliced together in a lab as a weapon
of genocide. What follows is a look at the major flaws in, and political
agenda of, the major conspiracy theories. Readers uninterested in this
detailed critique may skip to the section beginning with "The Real
Genocide," which discusses the system that made these theories so plausible
and that abets as  part of its routine functioning the spread of AIDS to
"undesirable" communities.

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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
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