Another Line of BS?

Gambian President Yahya Jammeh claims that he has the answer to the world’s AIDS problem. The herbal treatment that he claims cures AIDS, came to him in a dream late last year. He has yet to release the ingredients of the concoction that has been given to AIDS patients since January, but users of the substance claim that it is working.

AIDS was first brought to the attention of the United States (The West) in 1981 when the viral disease surfaced throughout the gay community. Scientists have been aware of the disease since 1959 when the virus was an invisible entry in the medical books. No one is exactly positive where or how the virus originated, but anthropologists point to the jungles of the Congo (Democratic Republic of Congo) where HIV was somehow passed from monkeys (primates) to humans.

Today HIV/AIDS has been tamed in the West, partly because of massive educational campaigns and the relative easy access to anti-retroviral drugs. But Africa is a different story, as AIDS has run rampant since the late 1970’s. Today over 25 million people on the continent are infected with either HIV or AIDS and more are contracting the virus each day. The spread of the virus has been slowed due to the increase in donations from Western pharmaceutical corporations and the UN, but the problem still remains.

Because the virus has been tamed in the West, some people are oblivious to the consequences of HIV/AIDS. HIV/AIDS are not one disease, but in fact are separate diseases. HIV or human immunodeficiency virus is the virus that causes AIDS or acquired immune deficiency syndrome. HIV can be kept in check with anti-retroviral drugs, which in the West infected people can live normal life spans if they take the drugs religiously.

But when HIV turns into AIDS there is nothing that can be done. AIDS is defined by the medical community when an individual’s T-CELL (immune system cells) drops below a specific level. AIDS does not technically kill people; it is usually a common ailment such as pneumonia that causes the demise of an individual.

If President Jammeh’s herbal concoction is indeed inept as the UN claims it is, the results will be devastating for Africa. The UN fears that people afflicted will quit taking their anti-retroviral drugs, hence hastening their ultimate declines. I believe that the president had the best of intentions, but like the old saying goes: some of the worse things imaginable have been done with the best of intentions.