At the bottom of today's New York Times article about AIDS drugs by the well known EIS-operative, Lawrence Altman [1], in "other information" is a piece called "the saddest thing on the internet today."
The page it refers to [2] shows the map of the world (above) with photographs of smiling faces popping into view every few seconds (almost exclusively in the middle of the African continent) with the following statement:
"AIDS
AIDS is now second only to the Black Death as the largest epidemic in history. AIDS kills about 2.9 million people a year, or about one person every 11 seconds, as you can see here. This death toll surprisingly includes a lot of children, who are often infected with the HIV virus during pregnancy or through breast-feeding.
The toll is worst in Africa, where millions of parents have died, leaving children as orphans. Often teachers have died as well, leaving schools empty. Doctors and nurses have died, leaving hospitals and medical clinics with nothing. Farmers have died, leaving crops in the fields. Entire villages have been devastated.
Yet AIDS is a preventable and increasingly treatable disease. The huge majority of deaths can be stopped. Through education, the use of condoms, and proper medicine, AIDS has been brought under control in the developed countries. The same can be true in Africa and other poor areas of the
world.
Sources: Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), World Health Organization (WHO).
Note: The map display above is representational only and does not show the names and faces of real people. The photographs are computer composites of multiple individuals."
And it goes (almost) without further noting, that the same "Disclaimer" needs to be applied to the text.
As with all good political propaganda, the lines between falsehoods and truth are very carefully drawn. In this instance, it take only a little "editorial adjustment" to accomplish a transformation of esssentially racist distortions to acceptable fact.
All that is required is to elimiante the few references to "epidemic" and "the virus", and change "AIDS" to "Diseases of poverty, that are now called AIDS, ...".
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