Here we are in the middle of an “AIDS Awareness Month” drifting into complete unreality. We fantasize about a faraway land, Africa, instead of looking around our own.
I write from America, where, after offering up as a gesture of understanding Kate Moss in PhotoShopped blackface and a wide nose, we have just learned that circumcision of African men "cuts" the rate of 'HIV infection' by half.
The news came to us through the authoritative front page of The New York Times, with a headline proclaiming “H.I.V. Risk Halved by Circumcision, U.S. Agency Finds.” I can't help but wonder if this isn't some unconscious, "Freudian number".
And not surprisingly, “More Money Is Expected” – which may explain why a prior "trial" held in South Africa was reported in The Wall Street Journal in 2005, even though it is rumored to have been rejected by The Lancet and the researchers had to settle for the obscure PLoS Medicine. “Two Trials in Africa Offer Way for Heterosexuals to Avoid AIDS,” raves the Times. The supposed problem of African males, so resonant with public superstitions about AIDS, has finally been scientifically solved.
Science worship, with veneration of its white-coated, clipboarded priests, is different from respect for scientific method. Certainly, no sound scientific reasoning lies behind the methods of this study. For one thing, the researchers pulled the plug on the thing at 14 months, even though it was designed to continue for 21 months. The Times writes that the National Institutes of Health has stopped the other two trials because “not offering circumcision to all the men taking part would be unethical,” citing the “success” of these studies and the South African one. Halting a game at the end of the third quarter because a favored team had “success” – that’s unethical.
I see no sign that any of these circumcision studies controlled for anything other than heterosexuality. But no young man living in a “semi-urban area” (translation: tough neighborhood) near Johannesburg is going to ‘fess up to being gay. The researchers followed up on neither what kind nor how much sex the subjects were having, nor any other supposed factor in HIV transmission – equally suspect – such as blood transfusions or intravenous drug use. They assumed that the only way these guys were going to get HIV was by having sex. Naturally. They’re black men.
And I write nothing of the real meaning of anitibody positive in Africa, nor the lack of informed consent, and absolutley nothing of the other singular and enormous lie behind these headlines. Namely, who ever proved HIV was sexually transmitted by anybody, ever? Certainly not Nancy Padian et al.
By now I’ve figured out that AIDS researchers create their own reality.
But who needs sound scientific methods when you’ve got white lab coats and clipboards and the power to circumcise? People trying to save us from the Virus That Is Eating the Whole World don’t brake for method. The numbers are just formalities before heading straight into ritualistic abuse.
And by the way, the researchers never said the trial participants were natives. But everyone knows that, in AIDS research, even in multicolored, multicultural South Africa, “African” is the code word for “black.”
“Black” is code for the sexual fears of the West, where we imagine all black men as predatory and dangerous. At least one blogger has smelled a Freudian “unconscious racism.” Racism? What was your first clue? This kind of racism is about as unconscious as a mugger’s wish for money. But circumcision, he writes, “is a threat of castration.” Good to know.
And the vivid sexual imagination at work in AIDS research, especially regarding black males, is an unconscious wish for . . . what? What is unconscious here is the ritual need. The purpose of a ritual is to bring society back into line, out of the random violence, sexual confusion and Greenwich Village Halloween Parades into which it has such a tendency to slip. A trance state – a drift into the unconscious or mythology – is needed for any ritual to work. You’re not supposed to be awake for the procedure, to know how it really works. You’re supposed to buy the up-front story, like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, about how circumcision reduces risk of “HIV infection.” Otherwise, the magic won’t work and the Western whole world view will fall apart.
“In many African tribal groups, men are circumcised, usually in late childhood or early adolescence, and this is an important part of their cultural identity,” wrote the priestly authors of the South African study, as if narrating a National Geographic TV special that had nothing to do with them.
Silly natives, investing medicine with ritual significance! As if Westerners knew better. By practicing circumcision rituals on black Africans, white Americans have found a way to resolve sexual and societal conflict without reprisal from our own black neighbors – all in the soft, fuzzy name of caring.
Scientific priests have performed the rite of Western cultural initiation on the young men of Africa. The mark of Western sexual shame is finally “an important part of their cultural identity.”
The science religion’s cultural colonization of Africa is now complete.
Elizabeth Ely is a freelance writer and public speaker based in New York City, who
has learned all the wrong lessons from being thrown out of a major
Protestant church. She is working on a book about the religious
nature of AIDS-think.
I suppose it is not "hard" to speculate on the possible motivations of the "researchers" who got into this, but what about the NY Times editors who not only put it on the front page (where all the news of the day that was "fit to print" was printed), but even were forced to editorialize about it.
At the risk of an Otis deletion, I can only say:
There must be some really short-dicked pricks at those desks.
Jan's view from the Western Front
Posted by: Jan Spreen | December 18, 2006 at 10:24 AM
Stopping a trial earlier than called for by the protocol may or may not be "unethical", but it certainly ensures that any statistical inferences drawn will be invalid. It is a standard fact of statistical inference that "optional stopping" allows the experimenters to choose what the outcome of the "trial" will be
Posted by: Henry Bauer | December 18, 2006 at 01:13 PM
Dr. Bauer gives far too much credence to this farce as a scientific study. I think that Marcel Girodian writing in the real NY Times, as linked above, is much more in keeping with the degree of diss that such garbage deserves.
I would much rather reserve the very serious point about "optimal" (for the investigators) stopping, (or in the vein of this string, prematurely terminating their "investigation") for the initial AZT trials which resulted in the poisoning of an entire generation of gay men and hemophiliacs.
Posted by: George | December 18, 2006 at 01:35 PM
Gosh, I'm confused here. AIDS is supposed to be ripping Africa apart.
For instance, the CDC says of Kenya:
"Kenya has a severe, generalized HIV epidemic. The Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (KDHS) 2003 found a prevalence rate of 9 percent in adult women and 5 percent in adult men. Surveillance of HIV in pregnant women has been conducted annually since 1990, with prevalence rising to 16 percent in urban areas and 8 percent in rural areas in the late 90s but now showing signs of decline." 1
So we go from 5% to 16% 'prevalence' rates and then this data comes along and shows for Kenya the rate in this group of men is half the lowest estimate above?
How is Kenya having a 'severe, generalized HIV epidemic' when 69 out of 2784 men over the course of about a year have antibodies that react to a non-specific antibody test? And what of Udanda, currently it's estimated that 6.7% of the adult population is 'HIV infected'. So why does this study show a rate 1/5th that?
Uganda
Total subjects = 4996 HIV
positive after the study period = 22 C: 43 UC: 65 Total
Age range: 15 - 49
Percentage 'infected' = 65/4996*100 = 1.3 %
Kenya
Total subjects = 2784
Positive after the study period = 22 C: 47 UC: 69 Total
Age range: 18 - 24
Percentage 'infected' = 69/2784*100 = 2.5 %
I think the crazy thing though is the misleading use of relative indicators that make something sound really impressive. This is so common for 'HIV' science.
For instance, www.hivandhepatitis.com reported:
In a trial of 2784 HIV negative men aged 18-24 in Kisumu, Kenya, the rate of HIV acquisition fell by 53%.
In a trial of 4996 HIV negative men aged 15-49 in Rakai, Uganda, the HIV infection rate fell by 48%.
And so headlines pump up this relative indicator but you have to dig to find what the actual numbers are. Not so impressive when you see it's not a number like 500 to 250, but rather 22 to 43 out of 4996 men.
Amazing.
1. http://www.cdc.gov/nchstp/od/gap/countries/kenya.htm
Posted by: Chris Tyler | December 18, 2006 at 02:43 PM
Thanks, Chris, for noticing that the numbers for Africa are rather high -- but I think they are rather high in the studies, too. For instance, the South African study I refer to had about 150 HIV positives "at randomization." I think that means from the starting line. And these stats you mention seem to be lifetime prevalence rates, if I am not mistaken. As in, 16% or whatever of these people are going to get HIV or AIDS or whatever they're calling the statistic in their lifetime, because 16% of them have it now. So what is about 2% a year, the reported South African results after that, multiplied by all the years these guys have to live?
What I'd like to know is, are they literally just stacking bodies in the streets over there? Observation on the ground probably says no -- not even from all causes of death. But we're not including the Congo at election time or something like that in the AIDS stats, right? Right? Uh, hello? World Health Org? United Nations? Guys?
I agree with what you seem to be saying here -- they are all just made-up numbers. They are estimated/projected from other made-up numbers based on/not based on a test that picks up garbage.
Posted by: Elizabeth Ely | December 18, 2006 at 03:37 PM
I cannot help to notice that the illustration at the top of Sister Beth's powerful little essay depicts what could easily be Black African "physicians" performing the very life saving surgery that the great white witch doctors of the NIH say can be performed, painlessly and safely by almost any old "village healer", according to the NY Times and its earth shaking report.
So I am wondering if maybe this newest bit of psychosexualis is not some kind of delayed payback for those days when Africa was the beacon, and Europe was the black hole of civilization.
Posted by: Brother from Brooklyn | December 18, 2006 at 08:22 PM
The whole issue of male circumcision--indelicately described by some as MGM--seems very tendentious.
After all, if the goal were to obtain an unvarnished answer to whether male circumcision serves as an effective barrier to HIV transmission then the very obvious research answer would to to compare the HIV rates of countries where MC is the norm and countries where it's not.
Thus why didn't the researchers think of comapring the comparative HIV rates of Greece and Turkey; India and Bangladesh; Indonesia and China; Sweden and the U.S; Norway and Morocco; Finland and Israel, etc.
Looks like the same old trick (racist?) of using Africans as scape goats as well as guinea pigs.
Posted by: elkay | January 12, 2007 at 12:25 PM
According to publiclly available, offical statistics here are the AIDS rates for different contries. Perhaps these numbers could shed some light on AIDS and male circumcision:
JAPAN(virtually uncircumcised): 0.02%
Japanese men are know to be the major proponents of "sex tourism" in South East Asia--especially to Thailand. Condom use among the general population is not so seriously taken
FINLAND(virtually uncircumcized): 0.05%
The Finns take a liberal attitude towards sexuality as Scandinavia in general does.
INDIA(10% Moslem) and with huge urban populations in which prostutition is widely practiced: 0.91%
ISRAEL(virtually circumcized): 0.1% to 0.2%
Note that Israel's rate is HIGHER than that of both Japan and Finland.
BANGLADESH(virtually circumcized):~ 1.0%.
Note again that Bangladesh's numbers are approxiamtely the same as INDIA'S
GREECE(virtually uncircumcized): 0.16%.
Greece receives huge amounts of tourists annually many of whom seek relations with the locals.
INDONESIA(predominantly circumcized): 0.1--0.2%
Note that Indonesia is in the same range as GREECE.
TURKEY(circumcized): .01%
Turkey's numbers are approximately on par with those of Japan and Finland.
Assuming that the reported numers are correct, the somewhat paradoxical conclusion from the above is that the nations that are uncircumcized are on slight statistical advantage--on average--over those that are circumcized!
But in the world of AIDS, Inc., when it comes to Africa all rational thought is out the proverbial window before it even gets a chance to hatch.
Posted by: elkay (some data) | January 14, 2007 at 12:37 PM