On the eve of World AIDS Day, popular claims
about AIDS came under scrutiny once again in
the global media. On November 20, the Washington
Post revealed that UN AIDS planned to admit it
has long overestimated both the size and course
of the epidemic, reporting constant increases
when evidence showed the opposite was true.
A multitude of news stories followed UNAIDS
admission of inflated figures, but as Dr.
Henry Bauer points out in the commentary
following the Post article, media coverage
failed to report clearly that the UN AIDS
revision was only of statistically calculated
estimates, not of the actual situation those
numbers pretend to describe.
U.N. to Cut Estimate Of AIDS Epidemic
Population With Virus Overstated by Millions
by Craig Timberg, Washington Post, November 20, 2007
JOHANNESBURG-- The United Nations' top AIDS scientists
plan to acknowledge this week that they have long
overestimated both the size and the course of the
epidemic, which they now believe has been slowing
for nearly a decade, according to U.N. documents
prepared for the announcement.
AIDS remains a devastating public health crisis in
the most heavily affected areas of sub-Saharan Africa.
But the far-reaching revisions amount to at least
a partial acknowledgment of criticisms long leveled
by outside researchers who disputed the U.N. portrayal
of an ever-expanding global epidemic.
The latest estimates, due to be released publicly
Tuesday, put the number of annual new HIV infections
at 2.5 million, a cut of more than 40 percent from
last year's estimate, documents show. The worldwide
total of people infected with HIV -- estimated a year
ago at nearly 40 million and rising -- now will
be reported as 33 million.
Having millions fewer people with a lethal contagious
disease is good news. Some researchers, however, contend
that persistent overestimates in the widely quoted
U.N. reports have long skewed funding decisions and
obscured potential lessons about how to slow the spread
of HIV. Critics have also said that U.N. officials
overstated the extent of the epidemic to help gather
political and financial support for combating AIDS.
"There was a tendency toward alarmism, and that fit
perhaps a certain fundraising agenda," said Helen
Epstein, author of "The Invisible Cure: Africa,
the West, and the Fight Against AIDS." "I hope these
new numbers will help refocus the response in a more
pragmatic way."
Annemarie Hou, spokeswoman for the U.N. AIDS agency,
speaking from Geneva, declined to comment on the
grounds that the report had not been released
publicly. In documents obtained by The Washington Post,
U.N. officials say the revisions stemmed mainly from
better measurements rather than fundamental shifts
in the epidemic. They also say they are continually
seeking to improve their tracking of AIDS with the
latest available tools.
Among the reasons for the overestimate is methodology;
U.N. officials traditionally based their national HIV
estimates on infection rates among pregnant women
receiving prenatal care. As a group, such women were
younger, more urban, wealthier and likely to be more
sexually active than populations as a whole, according
to recent studies.
The United Nations' AIDS agency, known as UNAIDS and
led by Belgian scientist Peter Piot since its founding
in 1995, has been a major advocate for increasing
spending to combat the epidemic. Over the past decade,
global spending on AIDS has grown by a factor of 30,
reaching as much as $10 billion a year.
But in its role in tracking the spread of the epidemic
and recommending strategies to combat it, UNAIDS has
drawn criticism in recent years from Epstein and
others who have accused it of being politicized and
not scientifically rigorous.
For years, UNAIDS reports have portrayed an epidemic
that threatened to burst beyond its epicenter in southern
Africa to generate widespread illness and death in
other countries. In China alone, one report warned,
there would be 10 million infections -- up from 1 million
in 2002 -- by the end of the decade.
Piot often wrote personal prefaces to those reports
warning of the dangers of inaction, saying in 2006
that "the pandemic and its toll are outstripping
the worst predictions."
But by then, several years' worth of newer, more
accurate studies already offered substantial evidence
that the agency's tools for measuring and predicting
the course of the epidemic were flawed.
Newer studies commissioned by governments and relying
on random, census-style sampling techniques found
consistently lower infection rates in dozens of
countries. For example, the United Nations has cut
its estimate of HIV cases in India by more than half
because of a study completed this year. This week's
report also includes major cuts to U.N. estimates
for Nigeria, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
The revisions affect not just current numbers but
past ones as well. A UNAIDS report from December
2002, for example, put the total number of HIV
cases at 42 million. The real number at that time
was 30 million, the new report says.
The downward revisions also affect estimated numbers
of orphans, AIDS deaths and patients in need of
costly antiretroviral drugs -- all major factors in
setting funding levels for the world's response to
the epidemic.
James Chin, a former World Health Organization AIDS
expert who has long been critical of UNAIDS, said that
even these revisions may not go far enough. He
estimated the number of cases worldwide at 25
million.
"If they're coming out with 33 million, they're getting
closer. It's a little high, but it's not outrageous
anymore," Chin, author of "The AIDS Pandemic:
The Collision of Epidemiology With Political Correctness,"
said from Berkeley, Calif.
The picture of the AIDS epidemic portrayed by the newer
studies, and set to be endorsed by U.N. scientists, shows
a massive concentration of infections in the southern
third of Africa, with nations such as Swaziland and
Botswana reporting as many as one in four adults infected
with HIV.
Rates are lower in East Africa and much lower in West
Africa. Researchers say that the prevalence of
circumcision, which slows the spread of HIV, and
regional variations in sexual behavior are the biggest
factors determining the severity of the AIDS epidemic
in different countries and even within countries.
Beyond Africa, AIDS is more likely to be concentrated
among high-risk groups, such as users of injectable drugs,
sex workers and gay men. More precise measurements of
infection rates should allow for better targeting of
prevention measures, researchers say.
Dr. Henry Bauer on Revisions of Imagined AIDS Numbers:
How the Media Makes Good News out of Bad Information
http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/ 29 November 2007
UNAIDS recently decreased by more than 6 million its
estimate of the number of HIV-infected people, putting
it now at 33 million as opposed to last years estimate
of 39 plus million. The estimated number of new HIV
cases was also lowered by 40%. (For useful commentary,
see Science Guardian of November 20th.)
Media coverage failed to report clearly that the
revision was only of statistically calculated estimates,
not of the actual situation those numbers pretend to
describe.
Thus an editorial on November 25 in the Arizona Republic
had the heading, Turning the corner on HIV is inspiration
to keep going, and the optimistic comment that The
United Nations has revised its HIV estimates
downward, correcting statistical flaws that, frankly,
should have been addressed earlier.
But that should not obscure the good news: a significant
drop in new infections in recent years, especially in
hard-hit sub-Saharan Africa. Efforts to fight HIV/AIDS
have actually turned the corner. Now is the critical
time to keep resources flowing, when its clear that
prevention is paying off.
But there had been no good news, just the bad news
for those who did not already know it, that UNAIDSs
numbers are not worthy of attention, let alone belief.
In this latest revision, for example, the recalculated
infection rate in sub-Saharan Africa for 2001 is given
as 5.0% (4.6-5.5); in the 2004 version, the rate for
2001 had been given as 7.6% (7.0-8.5). Naove consumers
of numbers may imagine that when experts state a range
like 7.0-8.5, that asserts with great confidence that
the true value lays between those bounds. Yet three
short years later, we are asked to have great confidence
in a considerably lower range, 4.6-5.5, that does not
even overlap the earlier one. That should inspire
great confidence in this conclusion: These experts do
not know what they are doing.
There is no obvious reason to lend any credence to
UNAIDS latest numbers, and sound reason not to.
Detailed descriptions of the technicalities of the
computer models can make the head spin, but it takes
no expertise to recognize that the estimates are an
affront to plain common sense. The ranges of
uncertainty attached to UNAIDSs estimates are
clearly nonsensical. Furthermore, UNAIDS
estimates for the United States differ greatly from
the data published by the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC).
For whats wrong with many other aspects of
officially disseminated HIV/AIDS numbers see the
book, The Origins, Persistence and Failings of
HIV/AIDS Theory which includes information on:
- The unexplained retroactive reduction by the CDC
of actually reported AIDS deaths (page 221)
- How the number of HIV-positive Americans has
remain unchanged for two decades during a supposedly
spreading epidemic (pp. 1-2)
- Poor performance of the computer models used by
the CDC, (p. 223)
- How the CDC increasingly disseminates estimates
rather than actual counts (pp. 221-2)
You may also want to read Dr. Robert O. Young's article
entitled, "A Second Thought on Viruses, Vaccines, and the
HIV/AIDS Hypothesis," in his book Sick and Tired.
http://www.phmiracleliving.com/books.htm
Dr. Young, a research scientist at The pH Miracle
Living Center, states, "HIV is a phantom virus! The
HIV virus is yet to be identified and tied to the
symptoms of AIDS following Koch's scientific
principals of cause and effect. The symptoms of
AIDS is the result of an over-acidic lifestyle and
diet or the consequences of choice. The cure for
AIDS will be found not in its treatment but in its
prevention through an alkaline lifestyle and diet."
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