[Dean's World] Dean: Accountability in Government-Funded Research

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Posted by Dean:
Accountability in Government-Funded Research
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1144400460.shtml


   Most people are startled to learn that as far back as 1997--almost ten
   years ago--the Wall Street Journal won the Pulitzer prize for national
   reporting on medicine for revealing that the U.S. Centers for Disease
   Control and National Institutes of Health (and by extension the World
   Health Organization, which gets most of its funding from us) had been
   systematically and grossly misleading the general public about the
   level of risk posed by HIV to everyday Americans. You can still read
   that story here: [1]AIDS Fight Is Skewed By Federal Campaign
   Exaggerating Risks.

   As it happens, it was around that time that CDC, NIH, and WHO began
   increasing their emphasis on the fight against AIDS in Africa. Indeed,
   you may have noticed that the vast majority of reporting on AIDS in
   the "MSM" (Mainstream Media) these days is about Africa. The
   constantly-trumpeted story these days is about "the spread of HIV/AIDS
   in Africa," with countless reminders that we had to get over our
   prejudices and realize it isn't gay Americans who are the face of
   AIDS, it is black Africans. The Clinton administration declared AIDS
   in Africa a U.S. "national security crisis," a viewpoint echoed
   repeatedly by the Bush administration since 2001.

   Yesterday, April 6 2006, the Washington Post posted a lengthy article
   with a title that sounds eerily familiar: [2]How AIDS in Africa Was
   Overstated
   .

   I urge you to read the entire thing.

   To be sure, both of the above-linked stories take the view that HIV,
   and HIV alone, is the cause of AIDS. But, the establishment--by which
   I mean CDC, NIH, WHO, and the world's medical associations--now have
   to face up to at least two things:

   1) We were greatly misled about the crisis in America and Europe.

   And now,

   2) We were greatly misled about the crisis in Africa.

   Some of us have been saying for some time now that their numbers for
   Africa made no damned sense. If you looked too close at them, they
   always fell apart. Indeed, one of the most bizarre pseudo-markers they
   liked to throw at you was this: "the coffin-making industry is booming
   in Africa." This has to be the most weird measure of medical disaster
   yet devised by man.

   It would be nice to see them face up to that, too. Somehow, I don't
   think they will.

   Anyway, when you finish reading the above two stories, I suggest you
   carefully read the following article (you'll need [3]Acrobat Reader to
   read it, as it's a PDF): [4]Out Of Control: AIDS and the corruption of
   medical science.

   I strongly suggest printing that out and reading it all the way
   through over a couple of cups of coffee. Africa, as well as
   African-Americans, play a prominent role in that extraordinary story.
   And by the way, that's the complete, unedited version of the article.
   I've linked an earlier, much shortened version, but this is the full,
   uncensored copy, and you really should read it.

   Then please bear in mind: this was published in the March 2006 issue
   of [5]Harper's, one of the oldest and most respected magazines in the
   world. That doesn't make it automatically correct, of course. But this
   isn't some fringe publication. It's as mainstream as you get in
   American journalism. It's the magazine that Mark Twain used to write
   for, for goodness sakes.

   Now I note something else:

   The people in charge of AIDS research--by which I mean those in charge
   at the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control,
   the World Health Organization, and all of their senior grant
   recipients--are, to this day, dominated by the very same people who
   were there in the beginning of AIDS back in the 1980s. These people,
   these same people, have sucked down tens of billions of dollars over
   the last two decades. Most of it taxpayer funding, some of it
   charitable funding.

   Billions upon billions upon billions of dollars. Year after year after
   year after year after year. The

   exact

   same

   people

   at the top of the food chain

   the

   entire

   time.

   "From a research point of view, they've done a pathetic job," said
   Paul Bennell, a British economist whose studies of the impact of AIDS
   on African school systems have shown mortality far below what UNAIDS
   had predicted. "They were not predisposed, let's put it that way, to
   weigh the counterevidence. They were looking to generate big bucks."

   Fascinating.

References

   1. http://www.pulitzer.org/year/1997/national-reporting/works/2.html
   2. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/05/AR2006040502517.html
   3. http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html
   4. http://www.mindfully.org/Health/2006/AIDS-Medical-Corruption1mar06.htm
   5. http://www.harpers.org/