Should a doctor sterilize an unmarred teenage who is living successfully with HIV on the birth of he

reply to post by reitze

Read the post again, I didn't call you dumb.

Where's the proof from the scientific community that anything in the documnetary is true? Oh no Aids denialist says there is still major medical disagreement on AIDS; HIV tests don't work; AIDS in Africa is actually just poverty and amongst gays in the US it's poppers - and if you disbelieve any of the nonsense you are just dumb. Mr AIDS denialist says HIV does not cause AIDS, and probably doesn't even exist (depending on which denialist you ask, they're not agreed on the existence of HIV) - and if you don't believe it you're dumb or a shill for big pharma.

I was satirizing the language AIDS denialists use against ME when I question them i.e. If one questions any of their more nonsensical statements then one is dumb or a shill for big pharma.
You seriously misunderstood the point of that sentence which was to show how the rhetoric of being undermined or insulted also comes from the denialists.
That's a clear misunderstanding then.
Let me rephrase it: If one questions the denialists then they call (or imply) one is dumb and being a shill for big pharma. The "you" here is for anybody who tries to argue with them, and I thought that was clear in that phrase.
That's been my experience across several threads.

Personally I do not believe AIDS denialists are dumb at all, and when I first tested positive I was very much convinced by them myself. In fact, I don't think it's possible to argue somebody out of that point of view without direct experience, because the denialist discourse deliberately argues past proven science and the histories of the activist movements, and they keep repeating the same allegations regardless of the science.
It's easy to make allegations, but explaining the science is far more lengthy and difficult, and it's out there for anybody that's interested. In SA it took court cases with lengthy representations of evidence to finally topple denialism from power.

You brought up the House of Cards film, which by all cultural studies falls under AIDS denialism.
Granted, it's a loaded terminology for people who differ amongst themselves, but that's not my invention, and its what the broader discourse has decided.
For more on the term see: en.wikipedia.org...

I said quite clearly in the thread that I'm against forced sterilizations because ARV treatment makes the chances of mother-to-child transmission miniscule, and HIV-positive people can be normal parents and raise families. The preventative treatment is not expensive, and a single dose can reduce the chances of transmission by 50 percent. More advanced treatments can reduce it to 2 percent, and in SA vertical transmission may hopefully be phased out by 2015: www.irinnews.org... Unfortunately our former denialist President Mbeki thwarted all efforts to roll-out the most basic treatments for mother-to-child transmissions, so we only implemented it very late.
At least our experience in SA (with a very high rate of HIV since the mid-1990s) makes it unfeasible and unnecessary to engage in stigmatizing acts on HIV-positive people, and instead advances in medicine make it possible to lead relatively normal lives both socially and economically, so there is no justification for forcing sterilization onto positive women. That will simply make people fearful and unwilling to know their status, or to disclose their status to their partners. Perhaps in the past that was justified, but its unnecessary now, and it's a wrong step for any country, assuming it's official policy in Thailand. One can discuss family planning and encourage certain precautions, but forced sterilization is a serious break in trust, especially in cultures that place a large onus on having at least a child or two. In SA HIV reaches into the upper and middle classes, or the ruling classes, and there's no way they would allow that to be done to them. I would assume that where such sterilizations occur it's also a class issue, since poor women have long been subject to forced sterilizations for a number of moralistic and eugenic reasons, and it's one reason why the Western medical system is sometimes mistrusted.

I cannot change people's opinions or try to argue or insult them out of anything.
Neither did I claim to be particularly knowledgeable, but I am representing what I do know.
However, since the denialists are so well represented on the Internet (even if hardly anywhere else these days) I think it's important that the opposing opinion is also given.

On the one hand I think it's good for people to speculate and question, but on the other hand, if the vast amount of scientists and medical workers are correct then HIV remains an incurable and transmissible virus that is eventually fatal in the majority of the infected, and it takes certain active choices to prevent or manage it, and that message remains very important too.

reply to post by halfoldman


Nice of you to backpeddle the implication of "dumb". IMHO the theory that HIV causes AIDS is certainly popular but until its as obvious and published in double-blinde statistical studies as apples falling from trees - it remains a "theory", like EVOLUTION. Sure people can become religious about it - and that can become emotional. But as you've respected my beliefs (ie: reluctance to be a "believer" of HIV=>AIDS) better in your last post I can respect that. I also checked out you profile and can see its way more important to you than it is to me.

I do recommend people keeping an open mind. BTW, have you actually watched that whole movie, House Of Numbers??? If so your POV is still more respectable regarding the side of the theories you choose to "believe". I don't have a "belief" on it myself, just doubts and questions. And meanwhile do see there are big pharma driven over-diagnosis type drug 1st problems that tend to go on. If you check my posts you'll find I reversed and CURED Type 2 Diabetes without taking the Dr Pusher drugs (most still say a CURE isn't possible but its been over 4 years "cured" for me now).

Thanks.

Reading a bit more on Thailand, and in some respects they are doing very well concerning HIV (when compared to SA). They broke the patents of big pharma in 2007, and now manufacture their own second line ARVs and according to Wikipedia 88 percent of people who require treatment are receiving it.
The Avert site explains:

World Bank report in late 2006 suggested that the Thai government should perhaps do what AIDS activists had long been calling for – issue a ‘compulsory license’ to produce generic versions of patented second line ARVs, without the consent of the companies that developed them. This is legal under the international TRIPS agreement, when a government declares it to be a public health emergency.

In November 2006, the new Thai government decided to issue a compulsory license for the ARV efavirenz. The patent owner, Merck, was already selling this drug for a non-profit price of 1,400 baht per month, but by producing generic versions of the drug, the government could offer it to patients for half of this price.64 The government followed this by announcing in February 2007 that it would also break the patent on the drug Kaletra, and that more compulsory licenses would follow.65

Most developing countries have hesitated to break patents on AIDS drugs, for fear of trade repercussions, so the Thai government’s decision was a brave move, and has been widely applauded by activists and AIDS organisations. The pharmaceutical industry, on the other hand, generally condemned the move.66

It is thought that the government's decision to issue compulsory licenses for ARVs have already saved substantial amounts of money, and many lives. The compulsory licenses for Efavirenz and Kaletra are predicted to have saved Thailand as much as US$37 million in three years.67 In August 2010, the Public Health Ministry reextended compulsory licensing for Efavirenz and Kaletra until their patents expire (January 2012 for Efavirenz and December 2016 for Kaletra).68

www.avert.org...

The challenge seems to be more about educating the young generation, who were not exposed to widespread education campaigns in the 1990s, and current education campaigns seem culturally controversial, and condom use is low.

Forced-sterilization of HIV-positive women is happening in many countries according to several articles, and there have been court cases in Namibia and also from 12 women in South Africa. It's not official policy in southern Africa however, and governments deny knowledge of the practice. At least in SA it seems to be happening at a very primary level of healthcare by medical staff that is misinformed with dated information, confusions about consent forms, or some moralistic choice they make for the patient.It's hard to really get information on the legalities in other countries, and to what extent the practice enjoys official sanction, either tacitly or actively. It appears though that most countries are signatories to various treaties that are supposed to ensure the reproductive rights of women, and their access to HIV treatment, so it's definitely worth more research.

reply to post by reitze

I didn't backpeddle on anything, you misunderstood my sentence, which in hindsight could have been phrased better by myself.

And yes, I've watched the film several times.
I also referred to it in the page in this thread:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

I'll search for your cure on diabetes, which sounds interesting.
There's a SA sports scientist called Tim Naokes who was pre-diabetic, and he also claims to have reversed it with a new diet.
It's already caused some controversy, although I don't know much about the condition.
www.timeslive.co.za...
Many conditions can indeed be cured with lifestyle changes, but unfortunately AIDS is not one of them by our SA experience, although many positive people do become very health conscious.

The film avoids a specific or alternative cure (except perhaps that people who use poppers should stop, and that poor people need "better nutrition") but that hardly speaks to most people with HIV/AIDS today in SA.
In SA public health only provides ARVS when people have a low CD4 blood count of 200, and many are sick before they get the medication, so it's impossible to argue that current triple therapy actually causes AIDS.
The film's history basically stops in 1996, before which the virus quickly developed immunity around single and double therapy, and the initial doses of AZT were indeed eventually poisonous. However, they don't really distinguish that historically from current treatments, and the viewer gets the impression that the treatments are still deadly and that nothing has advanced since the late 1980s-early 90s. That's a main point of concern for me, because it comes across as so alarming that it can convince people to make rash decisions on their treatments. It's stuck in a bit of a time-warp, and doesn't show any contemporary treatment success cases, when we have so many.

This anti-ARV stance meant that the former health minister told us that olive oil, garlic, beetroot and lemon made into a drink with a breakfast cereal would treat AIDS! They also pushed various vitamins and tonics, and people who were doing well on their treatments were persuaded to stop and take these "cures", and the resulting deaths were what eventually led to court rulings against the denialists, and a change in policies.