Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

AIDS: Genocide of neglect

Mary | 24.07.2008 11:01 | Globalisation | Health | Social Struggles | London | World

DAN JAKOPOVICH delves into the rich states' record on HIV/Aids.

DAN JAKOPOVICH

Genocide of neglect

(Morning Star, Tuesday 15 July 2008)

Over 25 million people have died of Aids since the first identified cases in 1981. With the advent of antiretroviral therapy, HIV/Aids has become a manageable, "chronic" disease.
But between 2 million and 2.5 million people still die of the disease every year, despite the existence of medicines largely capable of preventing these personal and community tragedies. About 66 per cent of the infected live in sub-Saharan Africa.
Mortality rates highlight stark differences in access to treatment, as well as access to and education about prevention.
Under International Monetary Fund "structural adjustment programmes," underdeveloped countries are forced to service debts rather than concentrate on the development and social services vital to combating HIV/Aids.
At the same time, the epidemic is having a crippling effect on the economies of poor countries. It is wiping out the most economically productive age groups. The sub-Saharan region is said to have experienced a 2-4 per cent decrease in economic growth due to Aids.
"In 2001, only 30,000 of over 28 million infected people in sub-Saharan Africa were on treatment and over 2 million died of Aids," reports South African doctor Shereen Usdin in her No-Nonsense Guide to HIV/Aids.
Only when it became obvious that the epidemic was threatening global security did HIV/Aids become an international issue. Only the goal of preserving the stability of a system which produces so much human tragedy could finally mobilise global elites.
"The Aids pandemic has taken more lives than the Black Death in Europe of the Middle Ages ... HIV/Aids ... has infected over 60 million people, claiming almost 22 million lives. This is the equivalent of 7,000 World Trade Centre 9/11 disasters, four Holocausts and more than 22 genocides in Rwanda. By the time you read this, it will have risen even higher," says Usdin.
The spread of the epidemic has been aided by the catastrophic and callous stance of religious institutions and leaders, most notably the last pope, against the use of contraceptives. The US administration is also perversely exploiting the Aids crisis to promote abstinence and sexual conservatism internationally.
The gains made during the largely inauthentic but nonetheless hopeful African road to socialism era have mostly been nullified.
Average life expectancy in Swaziland is now below 32 years. In Botswana, where 39 per cent of adults are HIV-positive, life expectancy has fallen to pre-1950 levels of only 39 years. The average life span for Botswanans without Aids is 72 years.
UNAIDS estimates that 68 million people will die prematurely due to Aids between 2000 and 2020. The level of suffering is unquantifiable.
The astonishing lack of urgency towards the growth of this epidemic - despite 5 million newly infected people in 2003 alone - is possible only in a system in which profit and power are put before living, breathing human beings.
Even where they are in place, WTO epidemic control strategies have concentrated on cost effectiveness.
"World Bank policy-makers have argued, for example, that poor countries should not consider providing treatment to the afflicted and that prevention programmes should come first even if people were dying in absolute agony," writes health expert Susan Hunter in her book Black Death: Aids in Africa.
Pharmaceutical giants maintain their monopoly on the market through patents which have prevented the production of cheaper generic medicines.
Drug patents and intellectual property laws are enforced globally by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreement known as TRIPS, the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights.
The US, along with France, Germany and Switzerland, used its might to close TRIPS "flexibility clauses" and tighten intellectual property rights rules as the epidemic exploded. It also intimidated and blackmailed countries that wanted to produce cheap generics, like South Africa and Brazil.
Recent initiatives for greater accessibility of treatment have been uncritically hailed as a solution to the crisis.
The smug, self-congratulatory stance of the political elite and their corporate media, particularly in the US, was epitomised on Yahoo News recently.
Immediately after noting that a quadrupling of funds would be needed for universal access to Aids treatment, the article concluded in classic Orwellian fashion: "Today, the terror of Aids that prevailed 25 years ago has disappeared."
In fact, as leading French researcher Olivier Schwarz says: "In Africa, not even 10 per cent of the people who need treatment are getting it."
The struggle for access to medicines as a basic human right is still being fought all over the globe. In the context of the Aids pandemic, huge but insufficient price reductions and legislative changes have already been won.
The important steps forward that have been achieved so far, including the concept of freedom of access to medicines itself, would be significantly less likely without civic participation and self-organisation.
Wider demands for debt relief, protection of public services and for the freedom to import generic medicines have to be coupled with restorative elements of community empowerment, promotion of education and gender equality, mutually respectful relationships and early realistic, non-moralistic sexual education.
The stigma, ostracism, hysteria and fatalism have to be overcome through openness and greater determination to fight back, both against the disease itself and the corporate Machiavellians who profit from it.
The indifference of our rulers and the "international community" to the suffering of millions upon millions of women, men and children is a bleeding wound on the body of humanity. But the courage and compassion of those fighting for justice leave hope on an otherwise bleak and brutal horizon.

Mary

Comments

Display the following 2 comments

  1. Drug Co propaganda — Mike
  2. Some confusion here... — Ros
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech