Why is the AIDS virus so racist?

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Russia got hit BAD, especially during the Yeltsin years.

There was wide spread belief that Russia would be unaffected by it as they had been in the 80s (when travel was minimal) combined with the tremendous social collapse that hit Russia at the time.

The biggest thing that contributed to the epidemic in Russia in the 90s and 2000s was (and is) IV drug use. It wasn't a problem in the 80s because the Soviets kept a very tight lid on drugs in the USSR, although even by the late 80s there was some opiates sneaking in from Afghanistan. But the effects of the conclusion of the Afghan war, the civil war, and the rise of the Taliban should be made to include the fact that 70% of the heroin Afghanistan produced went straight to Russia at a time when its poor and drug-abusing population was exploding, and the authorities had neither the time nor the inclination to care about it (they generally disregarded Western advice on the topic, for a variety of reasons, none of which make any sense).

 

[H4run]

Russia got hit BAD, especially during the Yeltsin years.

There was wide spread belief that Russia would be unaffected by it as they had been in the 80s (when travel was minimal) combined with the tremendous social collapse that hit Russia at the time.

But we are talking about Liberia here, where 75% of women get raped during the civil war:

[During] the 14-year civil war in Liberia, from 1989 to 2003, [...] as many as three-fourths of women were raped.

And the number of rape case still high until now the target not only woman and teenager even babies. Also the number of drugs user is very high not only among the adult but also among children, which all of that acted as crucial agent for the spread of the virus. This condition is not comparable with the condition of Russia, how can they are much lower in statistic than Russia? IMHO there must be something wrong with the assessment.

 

[MilesGregarius]

Also the number of drugs user is very high not only among the adult but also among children, which all of that acted as crucial agent for the spread of the virus. This condition is not comparable with the condition of Russia, how can they are much lower in statistic than Russia? IMHO there must be something wrong with the assessment.

Drug use and intravenous drug use are not one in the same. If Liberians aren't using needles, HIV/AIDS transmission will not be tied to drug usage.

That said, it's quite possible that Liberia's statistics are not accurate. Impoverished and war-ravaged, I wouldn't be surprised if Liberia's public health records are less than meticulous.

 

[MilesGregarius]

I'm also curious why the number of AIDS cases is higher among black people. The big indicator is the Caribbean compared to Latin America. Haiti is extremely poor but if you compare the rest of the Caribbean with places like Nicaragua, Guatemala, and other places that have a great deal of poverty and are catholic it seems strange that its higher in the Caribbean.

Haiti got hit earlier than most (any?) other places outside of Africa, perhaps as early as 1966, due to many Haitians working for the UN in post-independence Congo - Ground Zero for HIV/AIDS.

Haiti was further hit by a blood plasma collection industry with horrible hygiene standards in the 1970s. (See: Luckner Cambronne.)

Bad government, poverty, systemic corruption, repeated natural disasters, the international community f***ing up relief/rebuilding efforts haven't helped either.

Dr. Jacques Pépin goes traces the history of the spread of HIV/AIDS in his book, The Origin of AIDS.

Here are the basics regarding Haiti from the New York Times review of Pépin's book:

The next link was Haiti. Because white Belgians never trained an African elite, only about 30 Congolese outside the priesthood had university degrees at independence.

To fill the gap, the United Nations hired bureaucrats and teachers from abroad. About 4,500 Haitians answered the call; they were black, well educated, French-speaking and eager to earn more than they could at home.

It's believed HIV/AIDS hitched a ride home with one of these UN workers.

That suggests AIDS crossed the Atlantic in just one Haitian. Molecular clock dating indicates it reached Haiti roughly in 1966.

Once again, Dr. Pépin argues that rapid expansion through sex alone is mathematically impossible and that there must have been an amplifier. He believes the culprit was a Port-au-Prince plasma center called Hemo-Caribbean that operated only from 1971 to 1972 and was known to have low hygiene standards.

Plasma centers take blood, spin it and return the red cells. If new tubing isn’t used for each patient, infections spread. Sloppy plasma operations caused later H.I.V. outbreaks in Mexico, Spain and India and, most famously, in rural China, where 250,000 sellers were infected.

Hemo-Caribbean’s co-owner was Luckner Cambronne, leader of the feared Tontons Macoutes secret police. Nicknamed the “Vampire of the Caribbean,” Mr. Cambronne, who died in 2006, bled 6,000 sellers who were paid as little as $3 a day and exported 1,600 gallons of plasma to the United States each month, according to an article in The New York Times.

Or maybe AIDS is just racist.

 

[Domen]

Because condoms are racist too.

 

[NovaKart]

Bahamas has a rate of 3.30% which would put it above Haiti at 2.10% if the wikipedia stats are accurate anyway. Jamaica is 1.70% 1.50% in Trinidad and Tobago. This is all higher than Latin America. Maybe the much smaller populations account for that.

 

[El_Machinae]

Just a nitpick but a preference for sex with women (or men) of certain origins is not "racist".

Agree to disagree. I mean, it might be too strong of a word, but it's within the right 'vibe'. If I'm less likely to woo a woman because of her color, I don't know what else to call it.

 

[luiz]

I'm also curious why the number of AIDS cases is higher among black people. The big indicator is the Caribbean compared to Latin America. Haiti is extremely poor but if you compare the rest of the Caribbean with places like Nicaragua, Guatemala, and other places that have a great deal of poverty and are catholic it seems strange that its higher in the Caribbean.

I think the notion that Catholicism helps the spread of AIDS is one of the most ridiculous and easily disprovable out there. The infection rate in Latin America, the most catholic continent, is comparable to that of Western Europe. Brazil, the biggest catholic country in the world, has roughly half the infection rate of the US, less than Switzerland and comparable to the Scandinavian countries.

 

[Smellincoffee]

Considering the prevalence of AIDs in Africa, and its possible origin there (is the SIV/HIV link still debated?), is it possible there's a genetically-based increased vulnerability to HIV, as with sickle-cell anemia?

Agree to disagree. I mean, it might be too strong of a word, but it's within the right 'vibe'. If I'm less likely to woo a woman because of her color, I don't know what else to call it.

Seems like a perfectly natural in-group bias -- a biased shared by everyone.

 

[El_Machinae]

Sickle cell disease lowers the odds of HIV infection

 

[Narz]

Agree to disagree. I mean, it might be too strong of a word, but it's within the right 'vibe'. If I'm less likely to woo a woman because of her color, I don't know what else to call it.

I still think it's the incorrect word. I mean my not wanting to have sex with men doesn't make me sexist (and my not wanting to have sex with old ladies doesn't make me ageist).

It may be no big deal but I just think when you start using "racist" too loosely it dilutes the word & really people should not be self-judging for their sexual preferences (unless they like little kids in which case they should explore with a therapist & possibly check their brain for abnormalities/tumors).

 

[El_Machinae]

I'm not disagreeing, but I don't have a better word

 

[Tee Kay]

"not my type"?

 

[El_Machinae]

Yeah, but when that type of so heavily correlated to race, whaddya do?

 

[Tee Kay]

Yeah, but when that type of so heavily correlated to race, whaddya do?

Ummm... nothing. They're just not my type. You don't control who you are sexually attracted to after all.

Like Narz said, not wanting to bang someone over a certain age - as a generalisation - doesn't make you ageist, and just because I have preference for males doesn't make me a misogynist.

You're right in that there's in-group bias at play here, as Smellincoffee noted above. I don't think it's such an intrinsic part a racist nature of ours though. Historically races have been separated by geography, or by law, or class, or prejudice. I think we'll see things clearer in the near future as these barriers come down (I mean, just purely anecdotally, young couples I walk into on the streets here are quite likely to be of different races)

 

[metatron]

I'm not disagreeing, but I don't have a better word

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure_effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propinquity_effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpersonal_attraction#Similarity_attraction_effect

 

[Manfred Belheim]

So most gays are poor?

Apologies if this has been explained in a post that I missed, but.... MSM? IDU? MSM-IDU?

 

[El_Machinae]

Males sex with males
Intravenous drug use

 

[Traitorfish]

Just a nitpick but a preference for sex with women (or men) of certain origins is not "racist".

When the best defence that can be mustered is "it's not technically racist", I'd say the debate has already been lost.

 

[Bootstoots]

Drug use and intravenous drug use are not one in the same. If Liberians aren't using needles, HIV/AIDS transmission will not be tied to drug usage.

That said, it's quite possible that Liberia's statistics are not accurate. Impoverished and war-ravaged, I wouldn't be surprised if Liberia's public health records are less than meticulous.

Yeah, I wouldn't trust every country's stats on that page, especially the countries that are both extremely poor and suffered recent wars. Afghanistan's stats are even worse: it claims an HIV rate of <0.01%, which is implausible given that it's the source of the vast majority of the world's opium and male-male pederasty is common there. What is listed in Wikipedia are the WHO's 2011 stats, which I assume roughly reflect current reality, but obviously there are going to be a few countries whose data is suspect.

I think one of the most interesting cases from the standpoint of this thread is Russia: not only was it affected by a surge in IV drug use beginning in the 1980s, but its government has more or less implemented the sorts of policies that CH would like. There are no needle exchange programs, methadone maintenance is illegal, homosexuality is socially taboo, and homophobia is given legal sanction: laws have been enacted to ban "homosexual propaganda". By all indications, its HIV/AIDS rates are continuing to climb rapidly and have outstripped all of Europe (except Estonia for some reason).