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Dangerous Myths and Tragic Misconceptions: Fighting HIV and AIDS Cases in Africa with Male Circumcision Strategies

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Genital Cutting: Protecting Children from Medical, Cultural, and Religious Infringements

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Abstract

This chapter challenges the claim that African AIDS can be controlled through sexual behavior modification, male circumcision, or drugs. The symptoms that define AIDS cases in Africa (diarrhea, fever, weight loss and dry cough) make its profile decisively different from that in the West. To understand African illness over the past 30 years, the chapter examines the deteriorating political economies instead of scrutinizing peoples’ sexual behavior. Field research in Somalia, Kenya, and South Africa and evidence from social sciences and public health are used to defuse African AIDS alarmism. A major portion of the billions of dollars spent “fighting AIDS” should be diverted to poverty relief, job creation, the provision of sanitation and clean drinking water, and aid for drought-stricken farmers, not squandered on male circumcision interventions. The chapter explains why the cure for African AIDS lies in an alternative explanation for what makes Africans sick in the first place.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Let the Sunlight In On Climate Change, New Scientist (January 30, 2010).

  2. 2.

    For an exposé of the fraud, waste, and abuse in the CDC’s misleading campaign in the United States, see Amanda Bennett and Anita Sharpe, “AIDS Fight is Skewed by Federal Campaign Exaggerating Risks,” Wall Street Journal (May 1, 1996) and David R. Boldt, “Aiding AIDS: The Story of a Media Virus,” Forbes Media Critic (Fall 1996). The CDC believed that exaggerating the risks to the American people was the only way to enlist widespread support for funds to combat AIDS. Thus, the theme of its public service ad campaign launched in 1987 was, “If I can get AIDS, anyone can.” In Australia, the so-called “Grim Reaper Campaign” was designed specifically to instill a new awareness and fear into people, See WHO Publications (2010).

  3. 3.

    A valuable but largely ignored exception is Women’s Health Interaction (1999).

  4. 4.

    For a thorough review of HIV-antibody tests that demonstrates their initial approval for blood screening was never meant to serve as the basis to diagnose infection, see Bauer (2010).

  5. 5.

    An examination of how this process occurs in the contemporary world is Taylor (2004).

  6. 6.

    An especially breezy account is Pisani (2008).

  7. 7.

    Epstein (1999). Eight years later, Epstein (2007) barely altered her bizarre and circuitous reasoning in a book.

  8. 8.

    Ibid., p. 183. Despite the stunning failures of the Project, one reviewer, who happened to be the Series Editor for its publisher, called it “the best book yet written on the struggle to control HIV.” De Waal (2004).

  9. 9.

    A fine example is Adams and Pigg (2005).

  10. 10.

    “A (Prime) Boost for HIV Vaccine Research?” The Lancet (vol. 374, October 3, 2009), p. 1119.

  11. 11.

    Ibid., p. 229.

  12. 12.

    Ibid., p. 236.

  13. 13.

    Ibid., p. 229.

  14. 14.

    Ibid., p. 235.

  15. 15.

    For a general overview, see Keim (1999); an important critique of the racism of conventional African AIDS research is Stillwaggon (2006).

  16. 16.

    The World Health Organization has defined health as “a stage of complete physical, social and mental well being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity,” a definition that psychiatrist Seamus Sweeney termed “a statement of awesome fatuity which renders health unattainable in this world.” Seamus Sweeney, “Incredible Promises,” Times Literary Supplement (June 20, 2008), p. 15.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Professor Emeritus, California State University, Chico, CA, USA

    Charles L. Geshekter

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  1. Charles L. Geshekter
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Correspondence to Charles L. Geshekter .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Family Medicine, University of Washington, Norland, Washington, USA

    George C. Denniston

  2. Berkeley, California, USA

    Frederick M. Hodges

  3. Information Resource Centers, National Organization of Circumcision In Information Resource Centers, San Anselmo, California, USA

    Marilyn Fayre Milos

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Geshekter, C.L. (2013). Dangerous Myths and Tragic Misconceptions: Fighting HIV and AIDS Cases in Africa with Male Circumcision Strategies. In: Denniston, G., Hodges, F., Milos, M. (eds) Genital Cutting: Protecting Children from Medical, Cultural, and Religious Infringements. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6407-1_17

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6407-1_17

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-007-6406-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-007-6407-1

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