HIV/AIDS

HIV/AIDS stands for the Human Immune deficiency Virus / Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

Writing in 2006, Professor Eric Ross observes:


 * "Initially, only a handful of writers, among them Meredith Turshen of Rutgers University, seriously questioned whether we should not also be looking at political economic factors and to the vulnerability of people whose immune systems were compromised by poverty and malnutrition. A similar position has been taken by the World Development Movement in a 1999 report, Deadly Conditions? Examining the Relationship Between Debt Relief Policies and HIV/AIDS, which notes that, “While not restricted solely to poor people, AIDS is a disease of poverty, marginalisation and social and economic injustice.” This certainly should not have been a particularly earth-shaking view in a country such as Kenya where, even according to the World Bank in 1995, “half of the population was unable to consume a minimum requirement of food and essential non-food commodities.”


 * "Turshen, however, continued to subscribe to the conventional view that it was essentially the sexual transmission of HIV that caused AIDS. But, University of California retrovirus specialist, Peter Duesberg, has made a powerful argument over the past twenty years that this is very unlikely to be the case. Support for his position has steadily mounted. Thus, even while not disavowing the idea of HIV causation, David Gisselquist and his colleagues, in an article published several years ago in the International Journal of STD and AIDS, nonetheless lend significant support to Duesberg’s view by noting that there is little correspondence between patterns of HIV prevalence (not to mention AIDS) in Sub-Saharan Africa and sexual behavior. This strongly suggests the compelling need to seriously reconsider the epidemiology of AIDS, especially in this region. At the heart of such a rethink should be a focus on the economic, social and environmental consequences of debt and structural adjustment and their cumulative impact on the human immune system and its capacity to respond to the resurgence of many of the diseases that are currently subsumed under the rubric of AIDS."

Related SourceWatch articles

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 * health care
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General information

 * HIV/AIDS and HIV/AIDS Basic Statistics, Centers for Disease Control.

Articles & commentary

 * "CDC wants HIV tests for everyone," Associated Press (CNN), May 9, 2006: "Testing for the AIDS virus could become part of routine physical exams for adults and teens if doctors follow new U.S. guidelines expected to be issued by this summer."
 * Eric B. Ross (2006), "AIDS and Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Critical View," The Porcupine, 5 February.