More UN Humor

U.N. Forecasts Big Increase in AIDS Death Toll

AIDS will claim an additional 65 million lives by 2020, more than triple the number who died in the first 20 years of the epidemic, unless more countries vastly expand their prevention programs, says the United Nations' first long-range forecast of the epidemic.

Within the article is a frank admission:

"We've constantly underestimated the kind of levels the epidemic can reach," Dr. [Neff] Walker said in discussing the report, which estimated numbers of people infected, AIDS orphans and a variety of other statistics about H.I.V. in every country.

The thrust of the UN report is that the West has to spend more in Africa and other nations. Interesting. The cry is constant and consistent: "We cannot control ourselves, you must give us money!"

One of the core problems with the AIDS epidemic is that it is treated differently from virtually every preceeding epidemic. In all other cases prior to the AIDS "break-out," the #1 treatment for a new epidemic was quarantine. Laurie Garrett did a brilliant job illustrating this in her book The Coming Plague, as she wrote about disease after disease, epidemic break-outs one after the other, and how they were brought under control. Until AIDS, where the entire established and proven methodology was turned on its ear not for medical reasons, but by politics. This attitude persists to this day, and, well, here we are.