E-drug: Origins of AIDS (cont'd)
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[Published as fair use. HH]
USAID plans probe of AIDS research
Tom Carter, The Washington Times, 5 March 2003.
The U.S. Agency for International Development said yesterday that its
HIV/AIDS experts plan this week to begin examining research
suggesting that AIDS in Africa is more commonly transmitted through
dirty needles than through heterosexual contact.
"I have asked to see the original scientific studies. ... The
epidemiology of the disease fits that it is mainly a sexually transmitted
disease. I need to see the data," said Dr. Anne Peterson, a physician
and head of the USAID bureau of global health.
Three articles published in the March edition of the International
Journal of STD & AIDS, a publication of the British Royal Medical
Society, upend the almost universal belief that 90 percent of HIV in
Africa is transmitted by heterosexual sex.
According to the authors, as little as 30 percent of HIV transmission in
Africa can be attributed to sex, while a much greater amount can be
attributed to unclean health care practices, such as dirty needles used
to vaccinate people and contaminated blood.
The study has roiled the public health community. The United Nations'
World Health Organization and UNAIDS, have called a meeting for
March 17 in Geneva to discuss the same research, which threatens to
discredit years of conventional condom-based programs to fight AIDS
in Africa. Dr. Peterson said someone from USAID would attend the
Geneva meeting as well.
"Roughly one-third of the spread of HIV can be associated with
heterosexual transmission ... a growing body of evidence points to
unsafe injections and other medical exposures to contaminated blood
as pathways" to HIV transmission, authors David Gisselquist and John
Potterat write in the March issue of the prestigious journal. "This
finding has major ramifications for current and future HIV control
programs in Africa."
If the findings are correct, it could force a major reallocation of funds
that go into HIV-prevention programs.
There are currently 30 million people in Africa with HIV, the virus that
causes AIDS. According to its Web site, USAID has spent $2.3 billion
in AIDS prevention and treatment since 1986.
Dr. Peterson said she did not know how much of that had gone for
condom distribution in Africa. She said USAID spent $25 million on
condoms worldwide last year.
President Bush, in his State of the Union address, asked Congress for
$15 billion over the next five years for AIDS prevention and treatment
in Africa and the Caribbean.
USAID will be responsible for disbursing most of the AIDS money
Congress allocates.
Dr. Peterson said that she knows several of the report's authors, and
that they are "pretty reputable," but she is withholding judgment on
their findings until she can see their research for herself.
"We have always been concerned about needles as a route of
transmission," she said, noting that USAID has pioneered research in
disposable and "auto-destruct" needles to prevent HIV transmission.
She said it was her goal to designate AIDS-prevention funds to the
areas that scientific data indicates would be the most effective.
"It is possible that we have underestimated" the number of people
infected through unclean medical practices, she said. "We plan to take
a pretty hard look at this."
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