THE FAUCI FILES, 3( 75): African Medicine Men -- Dumb Like A Fox August 22, 2000

African medicine man thinks "roots, nature, spirit, healing"...

White man thinks "AZT for pregnant women":

   "If the condition is, here's the money, but it might not
    necessarily be  for what you or the doctors think is the
    best medicine, it's only for  particular drugs -- we don't
    think that's appropriate,"

       S. African government spokesperson


While NIH/NIAID Director Dr. Anthony "Mussolini" Fauci gives
his diminutive best at vertical challenges and fifth-rate science
impersonations, it is becoming embarrassingly obvious
that it was a helluva lot easier to foist his "no brainer" antiviral
hoax upon the guilt-riddled gay beauty culture as it will be
for the "ignorant" Third World. Or to be more exact, the
culture of African tribal heirarchies with their traditions
of medicine men, observational medicine, and
lack of enthusiasm for "bad", or "forbidden" medicine.

As one who has been trained, degreed and licensed  in
the practice of traditional medicine, it was my privilege
to have befriended an African medicine man over the years
(from the Caribbean).  From what I managed to glean about
the past 10 thousand years or so of African medicine 
from this brilliant and intuitive healer,  the only advice
I will offer knuckle-dragging cretins like Dr. Fauci, The
World Bank, UNAIDS, President Clinton and the
pharmaceutical  industry that sponsors "Seargent Hillary's"
 Senate campaign is:

               Lots of Luck, fellas !

Or perhaps a Swahili translation would be more in order:

 "Beware white men bearing gifts, especially AZT loans..."

Most interestingly, though, it appears that even the most
gratuitous system of bribesmanship breaks down in the
shadow of traditional cultures which, much unlike our own,
have deeper insights into the "bad medicine" of murdering
the most helpless and innocent reflections of our own
spiritual being.

Did these NIH/FDA/CDC and pharmaceutical industry
monsters actually believe that Africa would embrace
AZT for pregnant women with open arms, especially
when HIV+ babies drenched in  AZT-saturated wombs
have a 500%-600% death rate HIGHER than HIV+
babies born to mothers who were NOT poisoned
with AZT?

From a study published in the Journal AIDS, June 1, 2000:

   "In this retrospective study, the risk of RPD (Rapid
    Progression of Disease) was five to six times higher
    among infants born to (AZT-) treated compared
    with (AZT-) untreated mothers."

   "The overall proportion of perinatally infected infants
    who developed RPD (Rapid Disease Progression) by 18
    months of age was 43%. The proportion of infected infants
    with RPD was higher among those born to treated mothers
    compared with infants born to untreated mothers
    (12 of 17 or 70.6% versus 10 of 34 or 29%; p = .01;..."
   

And just think -- this is the very finest "success" acclaimed for
2 decades of "AIDS research" by those in charge of
Amerika's health!


W. Fred Shaw, Editor
THE FAUCI FILES
================-

US Ex-Im Loans for Fight Against AIDS Have Critics; No
Takers

Washington, Aug. 22 (Bloomberg) -- None of the 24 African
countries  eligible has applied for loans offered by the
U.S. Export-Import Bank to  help buy discounted AIDS drugs
and related products from U.S. companies,  a bank
spokeswoman said.

South African and Namibian officials have denounced the
program, which  offers up to $1 billion annually, as helping
U.S. companies while  increasing African debt.

"This particular offer, because it had so many
conditionalities  attached to it... was both inappropriate
and crude," said Pippa Green,  a spokeswoman for South
African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel.

The Ex-Im Bank's program, announced last month, would
provide  market-priced loans to governments on condition
they purchase certain  AIDS and HIV prescriptions and other
equipment from U.S. manufacturers.  In some cases, the loans
could be made at below- market interest rates, according to
the bank.

The bank, whose mission is to boost U.S. exports by making
loans to  overseas buyers of U.S. products and services,
offered the loans just as  wealthy nations are implementing
an initiative to alleviate some of the  debt of the world's
poorest countries.

Many of those poor countries are in Africa, a continent that
also  suffers the highest levels of HIV and AIDS on the
planet. The United  Nations estimates there are about 25
million people in sub- Saharan  Africa infected with HIV,
about two-thirds of the global total.

Niki Shepperd, an Ex-Im spokeswoman, said the bank is still
in the  "early stages of discussions" with African
governments about the  program.

"We are still in the process of reaching out to the African
governments  through educating officials in the embassies
about how the program will work," she said.

Debt As a Solution

South Africa's Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said
last month  that her country did not see taking on debt as a
solution to the problem  of providing AIDS treatment drugs
in the country.

Nono Simelela, head of the South African Health Department's
AIDS unit,  said that "getting into debt is not the way to
solve the problem."

"Local manufacturing and parallel importation is a more
sustainable  solution," she said.

South Africa and other African countries are in talks with
pharmaceutical companies on a number of AIDS-related issues,
including  reduced-price sales of drugs, allowing local
manufacturers to make  generic versions of patented AIDS
drugs, and parallel importation, which  allows the purchase
of less expensive versions of patented drugs from  other
countries.

Right Intention

Merck & Co., Glaxo Wellcome Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.,
Roche  Holding AG and Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH are the
world's largest  manufacturers of drugs for the treatment of
HIV and AIDS.

Mead Over, a senior economist at the World Bank who
specializes in AIDS  and its economic impact, said Ex-Im's
program while launched with the  right intention, failed to
adequately take fiscal realities into  account.

"I do think governments of poor African countries will be
under some  pressure from the AIDS constituency to try to
provide these drugs," he  said.

The "conditions of loans," however, are such that "most
governments  will quite rightly be resistant," Over said.

The conditions attached to the loans offered by Ex-Im are
what riled  South Africa's Green.

The bank has specified not only the companies whose products
may be  purchased with the loans, but also which product
lines from the  companies are eligible, she said.

"If the condition is, here's the money, but it might not
necessarily be  for what you or the doctors think is the
best medicine, it's only for  particular drugs -- we don't
think that's appropriate," Green said.

The World Bank's Over pointed out that below-market loans
from the World  Bank and the African Development Bank are
available to many of the  African countries targeted by the
Ex-Im Bank program.

He said that given the availability of cheaper, less
constrained funds  for fighting AIDS in the continent,
Ex-Im's program is "going to be a  hard sell."

Aug/22/2000 17:38 ET

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