The truth about AIDS in Africa

Why are we wasting so much money on these people? Send them some garlic, beetroots and potatoes and be done with them all! We are merely prolonging the inevitable. The left is constantly saying that we need to send more condoms to Africa, yet the studies bear out the fact that African men refuse to wear them. So the money we spend on condom distribution is wasted.

In truth there is no Western answer to this crisis. It's a form of natural selection, either the Africans will have to learn new behaviors or they will perish. The antivirals are probably just adding to the infection rates, as the people taking them are probably a bit more frisky and thus prone to having sex more often, than the symptomatic cases are. The West can not solve this problem, the Africans need to take responsibility for themselves. If the fear of catching a horrific and deadly disease can't sway them, I don't know what can.

From the magazine, The Week,

"The Culture of Denial
Some of the countries worst hit by AIDS are still in denial. In South Africa, where 5 million are infected, Thabo Mbeki's government spent years expressing doubts about whether HIV causes AIDS and insisting that AIDS was a Western plot, that the drugs were poison, and that it was better to use African "cures." Though he was later forced into a U-turn and subsequently ordered the distribution of anti-retrovirals, Mbeki hasn't recanted his earlier views; his health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, has said she has more faith in lemon, beetroot, and garlic than in any drugs. South Africa's booth at an AIDS conference in Toronto this year featured garlic, beetroot, and potatoes. Some ARVs were added, but these were apparently borrowed. Meanwhile, many South African women refuse to take HIV tests, fearing their husbands will beat, abandon, or kill them if they find out. Some even end up infecting their babies through breast-feeding because bottle-feeding is tantamount to an admission they have HIV. Even when people test positive, they are often reluctant to take ARVs, because they think the drugs are poisonous."

Why are women stricken more?
"Because of their powerlessness in sexual encounters. The rates of sexual violence in the region are astronomical. In South Africa, where the culture of male entitlement to sex is especially strong, one-quarter of women have their first sexual experience as a result of rape. And African men often insist on not using condoms, although they could prevent HIV transmission. One of the more chilling findings of recent studies in Kenya and Zambia was that young, married, monogamous women had higher rates of HIV infection than sexually active single women of the same age. Women also have less access to HIV testing and to the anti-retrovirals (ARVs) that could delay progress of the disease and stop mother-to-child transmission during birth"