News, Opinions and Propaganda

Why I do not want to be the first to know?

Gone are the days when you were able to listen to the news and be informed of what is going on either around you or around the world. Now, you listen to news programmes and have to decide when it has moved on from news to editorial opinion and then outright propaganda.

I would present is typical scenario. The news is - The Queen had tea today; that should be enough, but the new networks now have to fill in time and turn this piece of information into an experience. For that bit of news, you end up with analysis from the following quarters.

The Royal correspondent [explaining why the Queen having tea is worthy of a slot on the news programme].

An expert on teas [suggesting why tea is healthy, what teas are best and which particular brand of tea the Royals drink, also what to have with your tea and what constitutes a tea as a meal].

Finally, from a think tank an expert [explaining why the stocks on all teas would rise, and those on coffee would fall. How the Queen adds value to the corporate balance sheets of tea companies. Then a list of tea companies with a royal warrant. In addition, fair-trade initiative that allows for a good proportion of tea profits to go the development of farming communities]. Cut to a newsbreak - PG Tips advert!

Seeing this whole development of an experience based on the simple information of the Queen having tea has moved from news to opinions to a subtle brand of propaganda promoting teas. Not every bit of news gets this kind of treatment but many do have varying degrees of extremity falling into all those camps.

The Correspondent - news networks now expend so much in having someone on the ground where the news is breaking; never missing the opportunity to reinforce what you just heard the newscaster say.

Some networks use local correspondents and others fly in a correspondent. Then there are different correspondents depending on the issue, more like a correspondent for every major government department like trade, health or education and other general issues or functions like political, royal, war, sports or European.

However, being on the ground does not mean you get to hear the truth, what we get is still subject to the editorial slant the news network wants to portray.

The Expert - that now seems to be common currency for any issue - this person seemingly has experience on the topic in the news as a participant, authority or observer.

Experts are supposed to lend gravitas to a topical issue and create the impression that you cannot question what they say. We know that in some cases experts do not necessarily represent the truth, rather a perspective and strong opinion on which they are ready to stake their credibility for a price.

For other light-hearted issues, the expert becomes a "rent-a-quote" purveyor of one-liners to punch through a thought. Who selects the expert? Someone involved in the editorial process.

The Think Tank - a definition that saw its first use in 1959 - an institute, corporation, or group organised for interdisciplinary research (as in technological and social problems) sometimes also called a think factory.

My take on this is - consider the workings of a water closet (WC), the tank fills up and is not emptied till the toilet is used, and for as long as the toilet does not need cleaning by reason of usage, the water stays in the tank a ready resource for bacteria and other organisms to feast on.

Using that analogy, a think tank is that last place anyone should go to for ideas, which are stale, rehashed, or at variance with reality. I would rather work for a think river and if that resource needs to be harnessed, then work for a think pipe - there is a need for flow, renewal and ditching old concepts.

A river of thoughts would always be refreshing.

The two most popular global news networks belt out slogans like "Be the first to know" or "Demand a broader view", I really just want the news and I would make up my mind about what I have heard in the context of what I know.

Now if I really want analysis of an issue, then I would like to tune in to another channel that calls in the correspondent, the expert and the think tank, but keep them out of the news.

Being the first to know is only of value if the information gives you some particular advantage over those who were not the first to know, but with millions in that category you can you can only appreciate it if the news what specifically tailored for your hearing, but broadcast with your permission to others.

A broader view

I would like to demand a broader view after having heard the news and then require additional detail. This week the world celebrates 100 years of flight - that is the news.

The broader view is another programme on the progress and developments in aviation over the last hundred years that one company is being favoured over another for contracts to build some new flight belongs to another programme allowing the flourishing of subtle propaganda.

I used to be a news junkie, I still like to hear the news, but use the Internet nowadays to catch-up. The hyperlinks from those news pages to other related issues develop the news into the experience I am interested in, but I am in control of what I want to read.

I get my news from these sites.

The BBC

English news for expatriates on Mainland Europe

Nigerian News

The World News Network

Editorial: Eighth of May 2011

An editorial for blogs

This blog is not a newspaper but the writer does have opinions that sometimes do not fit in the normal strictures of a blog; I suppose those are rules I have set for myself rather than ones that are hard and fast by reason of concept or custom.

I have noticed that my blogs are somewhat fully fledged, long, topical and organising of a particular series of thoughts and opinions, I can only recall writing a blog that was just a paragraph and that was years ago.

What I intend with what I will henceforth label editorial is to offer short views on news, events and observations covering a whole range of topics as I am minded to express without reservation and most definitely at all times, without prejudice.

Basically, Twitter will not suffice and Facebook hides the conversation from those who still harbour fright of its menacing tentacles.

The best president gone west

The events of the past week have been world-changing in many ways from my perspective as the Nigerian election season that started in April closed on Friday with the supplemental election that held to deal with irregularities that occurred two Thursdays ago.

The election petitioning process has begun in earnest with the second largest party in the presidential elections going to the tribunal to contest the results and seek redress.

The presidential aspirant of that party had promised not to seek redress but his party which in some terms was the vehicle for his ego and obstinacy is flailing with legal abandon such that it would be interesting to see how the reluctant leader will step forward to take the prize if his party does win their cause which will not happen by a long shot.

However, being baseless optimists, the prospect of a President with 4.5% of the Senate, 7.2% of the House of Representatives and 2.7% of the governors might well be the best President Nigeria ever had with an impossible congress to get his agenda through the system not forgetting the President cannot rule by executive fiat.

Meanwhile Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs) the UK equivalent of Queen’s Counsel (QC) will have a largesse of billable hours and usually plaintiffs acquire justice by SAN intimidation, it is not unusual to have a fistful of SANs to knock the justices off their benches, I hope to get a ringside seat to watch the utility of futility.

Between martyrdom and mermaids

When the United States decided to bury Osama bin Laden having given him a hole in the head, they definitely seem to have been conversant with Islamic burial practices as the difference of opinion was expressed in washing him before sending him to his 72 mermaids at the bottom of the sea.

The wash basically stripped him of the martyrdom that his acolytes would have wanted to confer on him and I would suppose the clothes in which he died would not be afforded the mystique of the Turin Shroud.

Everyone seems to be claiming journalistic privilege in wanting to see pictures of the deconstructed terrorist in order to convince themselves that they have mediaeval and macabre appetites for blood and gore rather than incontrovertible proof of the execution of the culprit.

My candid advice to those who need to see pictures is that they trawl the Internet and they can be enthralled with as much savage pornography as they need for a lifetime. I am quite satisfied with the changing versions of stories of how he met his demise, because there is one inalienable fact that others have to provide; an Osama bin Laden without gills, breathing air and telling us once again – Catch me if you can.

Russian roulette democracy

The UK had a series of elections last week and the one that I felt mattered was the referendum on Alternative Voting which simply allowed voters to rate candidates in order of preference until one of them passed the 50% threshold to claim the election.

Nominally, it would have forced candidates to work harder at being recognised to become one of the preferences but the people rejected the idea of their representatives working to earn recognition thereby leaving them less accountable to their electorate.

We get the government we deserve and so one can safely say all you have to do as in one case where the votes were tied is to cast lots or have one draw the long straw to win – who would have thought a classic case of short-straw democracy will occur just when people were given the chance to make a radical change to the system?

Democracy is definitely contending for the best from a selection of the worst options in most cases.

Editorial: Ninth of May 2011

The hills heard the jive of Osama’s footsteps

Long ago, the hills were alive with the sound of bombing but all that carnage never once got near him, he escaped from that hideout as a large bounty was placed on his head.

Time and again we heard as a refrain, how shall we solve a problem like Osama we cannot say what it took to climb every mountain, search high and low, follow every highway and every path you know.

We imagined he was high on a hill in a lonely goatherd but when he was found every single brand name of interest showed up in a room. Cola, the inadvertent pastime of Spanish pajero, wild oats, Vaseline, milk, conjugated posteriors of popular football and ganja make up a list that was bordering on unlawful and criminal.

The realisation dawning when the slug hit, when the head split and when we were feeling had, we simply remembered his favourite things and then we don’t feel so mad.

Dreams and things all up on a tight rope

I have not been to a circus in a long time and when I’ve had the opportunity to I have avoided the secluded kiosk of Madam Safira who was a compendium of futures you will believe if you crossed her palm with a coin that once had huge value.

Close to the hedge, the well-oiled castors just made you wish she was close to a steep incline that brought her bets on your life to a terminal end.

It would appear Clive Capital, the largest commodity hedge fund closed their palms to Madam Safira as her abode careered precipitously down to the rocks and between palms $400 million fell through the cracks because the oil price went south.

One has never been sure if the one-armed banditry of hedge funds who are no good at making things but are geniuses at making things up are better than Madam Safira at making dreams up, in all cases, one is well advised.

Impossible dreams of extreme privacy

As dreams go, the holy book tells a story of an albeit strange dream had by a king who knew he had this recurrent nightmare but refused to tell his dream and expected someone to both remember the dream and interpret it too.

Enter Daniel a gifted seer whose ability just transcended anything possible it was out of this realm at least that is what we thought when the judges in the UK put super-injunctions on the press.

The analogy is however apt, imagine having to interpret a dream you have not been told and compare that to someone taking an injunction out on the publication of a story and then an injunction on preventing information of that injunction being made public.

One can only wonder to what purpose as the same persons would willingly make public their saintly acts but seek the cloak of extreme privacy in terms of their sinful deeds.

We are only entitled to a single story of good behaviour and amazing role models, people without fault or blemish that they be demigods at worst and because they can pay for it we are none the wiser that they are also flesh and blood doing the unspeakable, the unmentionable, the reprehensible and the atrocious – but we cannot judge until Twitter tosses up the whole travesty and the law is left looking like an ass, once again.

Acknowledgements

Inspirations for this editorial are drawn from the lyrics of the Sound of Music in expressing a view about Osama bin Laden’s favourite brands courtesy of the Rogers and Hammerstein Organisation that owns the rights, from news that a commodity hedge fund lost $400m as reported by the Financial Times and the revelation that a Twitter user had revealed the murky details of super-injunctions as reported by the BBC.

The second chapter of the book of Daniel tells of the dream of king Nebuchadenezzar.

Nigeria: #OccupyNigeria New York townhall disruption

On Sahara Reporters

Now, I am not the greatest fan of Sahara Reporters but I realise that in a country like Nigeria the need for a guerilla news agency beyond the reach of government or powerful influences is critical and important.

I have always contended that they need to be more professional with a better editorial policy, an independent funding arrangement and some control of the quality of commentary that accompanies their stories.

As I learnt to my chagrin and annoyance, some two years ago having praised Sahara Reporters on my blog, their editorial team ripped off my article wholesale and posted it verbatim without acknowledgement or attribution and gave the impression I was a guest blogger when I was not at all.

The interesting knowledge gained from that experience was when I eventually got to see the 33 or so comments posted with relation to my write-up only one appeared to comprehend fully what I was talking about, the rest of the comments were redolent of ignorance and a strange pall of illiteracy that put keyboards at the fingertips of cretins.

Some lessons

Recently, the front-man of Sahara Reporters attended a town-hall meeting in New York where the Minister of State of Foreign Affairs was the guest of honour. He successfully disrupted the meeting which was recorded and posted on YouTube and he made some very crucial points that representatives of Nigeria going abroad will pay heed to appreciate and note.

We are well informed of activities in Nigeria and the global cachet of Nigerians is able to project and protest anywhere in the world.

The idea that Nigerian dignitaries can utilise African time when going to events abroad where we do keep to time and are punctual will no more be condoned. In this case the Minister was shamefully 90 minutes late.

We are not in thrall of people in power, if you are in public service, the element of service to your countrymen has to be paramount, the idea that you will be revered as some potentate with an air of mystique is so last century.

Patriarchy is dead, if you are expectant of respect by reason of the office you hold, you will have to earn it by merit, with competence and the honest engagement that accords respect to the people you desire respect from.

Causing serious embarrassment

The Occupy Nigeria movement has a global outreach and it is evident that despite the fact that the President in his concessional speech revisiting the fuel subsidy issues by promising to cut unnecessary travel, this minister was almost aimlessly gallivanting around the United States with the penchant for arriving late at all events she was invited to.

Though there were Nigerians in Diaspora ready to fawn in supine sycophancy in the presence of Nigerian politicians the goal of Mr Sowore was to call out this minister and in the process address the burning issues going on in Nigeria whilst embarrassing the minister seriously for her classless and reprehensible behaviour, not to talk of the inability of the government to really cut back on the profligacy that had become part of the gripes of the Occupy Nigeria movement.

Mr Sowore made his point by disrupting the meeting and he probably could have been a bit less volatile and abusive in his delivery so as to make even more reasonable points. The meeting eventually commenced after that representation of Occupy Nigerian were escorted out of the venue by the New York Police Department but not before an 11 minute recording had been made which will have the minister having to do some explaining and clarification with regards to what that video clip purports to suggest.

Reviewing the video clip

Without doubt every news organ has an agenda and it behoves them to pursue it with fervour, but it also important that the organ maintains a principle of credibility and integrity for purposes of posterity.

I cannot say if Mr Sowore’s edition of that video had sinister intentions to embarrassing all Nigerian representatives to the point that their positions become untenable. That might be scalps for Sahara Reporters but it does their cause no good at all.

At issue with that video is the idea that the minister and representatives of the Nigerian Embassy in New York sat through the recitation of the Nigerian National Anthem and a cursory viewing of that video appears to suggest that they disrespected the National Anthem and the ensuing consequences will be grave. Many of the comments I have read had both excoriated and condemned those officials but I not convinced that they did sit through that fervent expression of patriotism.

Within the first 1:07 minutes of that recording, there is enough evidence to indicate that the editing of this film clip has either deliberately or inadvertently besmirched the loyalty of these officials.

I have taken timings in playing back that video at normal speed and detailed my observations to support my view.

00:00 The lead in to this video clip introduces the subject of this recording.

00:04 The national anthem was already being sung as the narrator began to set the stage for the event.

00:14 The man at the podium was talking to the audience from what one can see of his demeanour; he could not have been doing this whilst the national anthem was being sung, indicating the audio recording of the anthem was dubbed over the video.

00:30 The lady that approaches the podium after the man also appears to be talking to the audience.

00:35 The lady glances toward the high table as if to acknowledge the people sat there.

00:38 The lady in the black jacket walked over to confer with the lady speaking at the podium.

00:42 The camera pans to the back of the lady in red who appears to be holding a microphone and maybe asking questions – at no other time are we shown the audience singing the National Anthem after the glimpse at the beginning of the clip.

00:59 The clapping at the end of the audio playback of the national anthem appears to be in acknowledgement of the man getting up on the right as he makes for the podium. The minister and the other man are clapping too, it cannot have been for the end of the national anthem.

01:05 As the man approaches the podium we hear the voice of Mr Sowore who seems to have commandeered the microphone and you can see the attention of those sat at the high table directed towards him.

My submission

I will suggest that no matter how late meetings start for Nigerian gatherings there will most probably be a call to prayer and the singing of the national anthem.

In both cases, I will expect that the master of ceremonies will expressly as all in attendance to rise for prayer and then rise for the singing of the national anthem.

It is unlikely that the singing of the national anthem will be a spontaneous activity and hence if the people are asked to rise to sing the national anthem it is almost impossible to contemplate the situation where those at the high-table with expressly ignore that request and sit through the national anthem.

By circumstance, tradition or even rarity, one has to submit that the video was an edited version of the event which inadvertently portrays a side of the story that does not represent the whole truth and by so suggesting the official disrespected the national anthem – there is no indication from that clip that those officials did not rise for the national anthem and until one expressly shows that they did not respect the anthem it will be unjust to suggest impunity.

I will be ready to review any other recordings of this event either to corroborate or dispute my views but this video by commission or omission on the matter of respecting the national anthem is unfair, unjust and heaps opprobrium on the officials to foster an ulterior and dastardly motive which is at best unconscionable if not dishonest.

Godwin Agbroko - Journalist murdered in Nigeria

Another Journalist Murdered

I had veered off into the wild for news when I happened upon ThisDayOnline – a useful and sometimes informed outlet for news from Nigeria.

As it happened, there was the unfortunate and rather bizarre brutal murder of the Chairman of the editorial board of that news organ on the 22^nd of December 2006, something I had not picked up from all the other blogs I frequent.

It is of great concern if like Dele Giwa of NewsWatch who was mortally wounded on receipt of a letter bomb in 1986 that another news man should come to his end being killed by possibly some hired hoodlums.

There is the suggestion that he might have been attacked by armed robbers, however, the likelihood is that he was onto something that someone influential did not want exposed.

Journalism in young democracies

It makes journalism a very precarious business considering the advent of a nascent democracy in Nigeria requires the freedom of the press and the freedom to information as well as access to information that threatens to undermine the function and progress of democracy – corruption being a principal impediment.

Russia is another example of where journalists live in great peril when they come across news that the government or oligarchs would like suppressed, in a democracy that seems to losing a positive focus, 2 were killed in 2006, and many are incarcerated.

The evolution of the scoop

There is no doubt that editors of major and seemingly impartial news outlets would gain access to volatile material and information, which they might not publish immediately as they investigate and try to gather a compelling and useful story.

As they develop the plots, there are people who would prefer that the truth of those issues are not exposed, where rather than having the good sense not being engaged in suspect and nefarious activities they would prefer to do things with impunity and eliminate any function or person that might expose their “shameful” deeds.

These rotten people do need to be exposed, deposed and prosecuted to the limits of the law, it would mean that exposés that editors come against cannot be used as exclusives that we are used to in the West, there has to be a league of trusted editors with a secure and vibrant network of shared values and information.

Here, it would mean all editors have to be eliminated, all almost impossible task – if a story that can cause ructions hits the investigation trail and is about to cause a serious upheaval that would upend these influential criminals.

This is the kind of evolution required of journalism in countries like Nigeria and partnership which helps safeguard the freedom of the press, the freedom to publish and the freedom to do so with the fear of loss of life, property or face.

His stewardship

Mr. Godwin Agbroko, whose demise has generated a rash of condolences – enough of the condolences and get with tracking down the culprits – did seem to lead a group of dedicated editorial staff though I have much disdain for his attention to the work of his proofreaders, a legacy he now seems to have suffered that they did not discover that his name was misspelled as Agboko in one of the articles, an issue I raised about sloppy journalism when they wrote a piece about Margaret Ekpo.

This is an area of journalistic expertise that needs good resources and strict supervision, it detracts from the quality of that work if we have to read and understand words from context only because they are meaningless due to the lack of proofreading.

The layout of web articles are also in need of some radical improvement, the paragraphs are not properly delineate, the lengthy pieces are literally impossible to read after the first new lines.

However, this should not detract from that fact that a journalist has been murdered and much more should be done to ensure that the culprits are brought to book first and then these crimes should not thrive in Nigeria, this highlights an area in need of serious development – forensics.

Reference

The journalist death toll of 2006

Nigeria: The Guardian, Conscience nurtured by half-truths

Guided from the truth

When my friend highlighted the context of an article that appeared in the Nigerian Guardian of the 6^th of March 2009, I opined saying maybe the paper was not necessarily serving the function of its masthead [1] which is Conscience, Nurtured by Truth but just being a general publishing forum of opinions no matter how crass.

The editorial board of the Nigerian Guardian allowed and in allowing, endorsed the publication of an article by a Christian Nwoke who purports to work for the Project for Human Development in Lagos titled Finally, a social vaccine for HIV [2].

Reading through his diatribe I felt the article might have been well placed to appear in some newspaper some 25 years ago. I would not know the function of the agency he works for but he is clearly not aware of the demographic he writes about.

The women are the most affected

Indeed, there is sexual promiscuity amongst the youth and there is serious child sexual abuse in Nigeria which does not get tackled with the urgency and exposure that it requires, but this is hardly the face of HIV in Nigeria.

If Mr. Nwoke had bothered to do the most basic research before he fulminated, he would have realised that in Nigeria it is the women [3] that carry the greater burden of HIV/AIDS by over 50% of those infected and children account for 8%.

His article concentrated on the scourge affecting the men when the social issue is the women who in their matrimonial homes cannot exercise the restraint on their promiscuous husbands who sleep around and bring things home. Or women who are egregiously abused by a paternalistic culture that demands sexual satisfaction regardless of the woman's desires or rights.

Condoms fail but still protect

There is a mind and discipline element to Abstinence but human beings have a sexual inclination and appetite, where it needs to be satisfied for all sorts of reasons it is good to Be faithful but where that fails the next line of action is to use Condoms.

These are the ABC’s of protection; using all means as a pragmatic response to realities – social, moral, political and economic – rather than a puritanical one solution view of abstinence which we fail to accept is ineffective.

Mr. Nwoke expressed his ignorance in full measure when he suggested that condoms are causative of HIV and hence advocated they should be banned because they are known to fail.

Anything can fail

Indeed, condoms are known to fail which is why we are advised to use a lot of lubricant and check during usage that it is still effectively doing its job, but I doubt if condom failure is the main cause of HIV infection, I would suggest it is the lack of use of condoms.

Abstinence can fail if one is unfortunate to have a tainted blood transfusion, being faithful can fail if one of the partners is infected by other means than sexual transmission and condoms do fail; there is also a contraceptive element to using condoms talk less of the social consequences of children people cannot afford to rear – However, HIV/AIDS comes from either participant being infected – never from just the act of sex between uninfected partners, no matter how promiscuous they might be – one should debunk the unfounded view of sex equals infection.

By the time he uses the analogy of failed parachutes where he says if he is told one out of 6 parachutes failed he would not jump out of a plane, (parachutes are used all the time for jump out of planes, stopping high speed vehicles and many other things, we we adopted such a unadventurous view to life we would get nowhere; I guess because of car accidents he does not drive and for the fear of electrocution he does not use the mains) – the story of his ignominy was complete but he would not draw my ire.

The Guardian draws my ire

That is to be given to the Nigerian Guardian Editorial Board headed by a Dr. Reuben Abati [4] who as watchdogs and guardians of the principles and focus of the newspaper should not have allowed such tripe to feature especially not in a forum like the Internet which has a global reach. Indeed we should promote the freedom of expression but there should be a line drawn at poorly researched expressions of ignorance.

In this one case they have allowed a matter of conscience for Mr. Nwoke to be nurtured by half-truths, fallacies and ignorance then given it a global platform – this is appalling at best and should be harshly excoriated at worst.

A malevolent protégé, I perceive

As for the agency Mr. Nwoke works for, human development can be anything from serious humanitarian activity through eugenics to being an offshoot Dr. Mengele’s laboratory [5] – with such views expressed, one can easily see where Mr. Nwoke’s mind is.

The Guardian should really ensure that their columnists have researched their copy diligently and would impart knowledge rather than a diatribe of ignorant generalisations that have no basis in fact.

My friend who alerted me to that apology of an opinion has worked with persons with HIV and AIDS in South America, Africa and Oceania in the last 8 years and was incensed that such nonsensical views could appear in a newspaper that is supposed to have a reputation and a standard – the qualifier supposed for now stands as a grudging compliment.

Sources

[1] The Nigerian Guardian masthead

[2] Guardian Newspapers: Finally, a social vaccine for HIV

[3] HIV InSite – Nigeria

[4] Reuben Abati - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[5] Nazi human experimentation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

How safe are condoms against HIV - HIV AIDS Care

How Effective Are Latex Condoms in Preventing HIV? | Questions and Answers | CDC HIV/AIDS

Note: If the source article disappears, I have already printed a PDF version of this infraction to good journalism.

Editorial: Twelfth of May 2011

Concerning another monkey vaccine

Two news stories appear to coincide with managing the scourge of HIV/AIDS, on the one hand is the study of eradicating the primate variant of HIV known as the Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV) in rhesus macaques making use of a genetically modified version of the rhesus cytomegalovirus (CMV).

The good news here is that this vaccine appears to strengthen the immune system to the point of controlling SIV and eventually reducing its progressive infective rate until the disease is abated.

However, there are many concerns with this study from the controversial view that patient zero contracted HIV from a chimpanzee to the concerns of introducing a strain of human CMV as part of a treatment regime.

Africans may not benefit

CMV belongs to the herpes family of viruses that is usually benign or dormant but can break out as chicken-pox, shingles, fever blisters (herpes I) or genital herpes (herpes II) amongst others, it is more prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa than anywhere else making that line of research rather risky and ethically questionable in terms of safety and assurances for effectiveness.

This study might well be of greater value to those outside sub-Saharan Africa but after the failures of a number of vaccine trials, many of which were aborted too, it is important to remain vigilant that all checks, procedures and monitoring are in place so as not to raise false hopes at first and then cajole subjects into trials that might be of greater detriment to their already weak health status.

Helping sero-discodant couples thrive

Accepting the fact of the prevalence of HIV/AIDS has been hard enough for some societies and beyond that the measures needed to prevent infection are fraught with cultural, religious, political, social and economic issues.

UNAIDS have released a study that heralds the reduction of infection between partners where one is HIV infected or in the jargon, sero-discordant couples. The study began with about 1,750 couples from 8 countries in Asia, Africa and South America.

Entry into the study required the infected party have a CD4 count of between 350 & 550 which represents a level at which the WHO does not require the patient to have commenced Anti-RetroViral (ARV) treatment.

Between news and scientific fact

One arm of the study was immediately entered into ARV treatment on commencement of the study and the other arm only commence treatment after two consecutive tests measured a CD4 count regression to between 200 & 250 or had developed an AIDS-defining illness.

The results show a reduction in transmission of HIV infection in 96% of the cases as reported by UNAIDS but the news story does not appear to comment on the significance of viral loads which is the amount of virus in the blood that could determine how infectious a person can be.

It is however known that ARV does reduce the viral load significantly to somewhat undetectable levels it does not however mean the complete absence of contagion.

Subtle observations with this study

The study that took in couples from the United States was aborted and though it was supposed to run for 78 months seems to have ended 3-4 years early because of the positive results though one should be concerned about the fact that low viral loads and higher CD4 counts for the time of that study does not confer immunity by any stretch of the imagination.

The lack of Western subjects is also instructive because medication in the study did not include multi-class combination drugs like Atripla though combinations of other discrete drugs would have been effective all the same.

At the same time, it is possible that Eastern Europe might have benefitted from this study though on balance the cases of heterosexual HIV infection would have been more prevalent in the areas that had the study.

HIV is more than a medical condition

It is important that the kind of complacency that appears to attend to HIV infection in the West because of more effective treatments does not cascade to these other study areas that included India, Brazil, Thailand, Malawi, Zimbabwe and South Africa, the absence of Nigeria from that study group should be investigated too.

On the whole, the progress in trying to control, manage or cure HIV is welcome but the news stories appear to herald situations which on closer scrutiny of the facts belies less of the optimism being communicated.

Most importantly, there are significant anthropological consequences of these studies between countries, cultures, traditions and laws coming north of the equator in Africa would have given this study much more empirical import just as allowing it to include the West, China, Russia and Eastern Europe. HIV in different societies is a lot more than a medical condition even in the broadest terms.

Acknowledgements

The following sources form the basis of this editorial; the news about the CMV vaccine against SIV was published by the BBC then related to drug regimes reducing HIV transmission as published by UNAIDS but 6 months earlier, the BBC had run a similar story.

The HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) Study is fully documented at the HPTN 052 website. Meanwhile the list of available drugs for the treatment of HIV as at February 2011 is hosted at the AIDSMeds website. Regarding CMV the New York Department of Health offers some information about the Cytomegalovirus.

Editorial: Cancer of the mind

Lazy newspapers

The editorial today is derived from a number of health scares that made the Nigerian social networking headlines within the last 24 hours all to do with how the big C – cancer can be contracted.

From Twitter with a URL that linked to a 234Next.com online newspaper story the eye-catching title was ‘Grilled meat can cause cancer' and then through Facebook to a news story on The Nation Online Nigeria it was ‘Beware! Oral sex causes mouth cancer, Fed Govt warns.’

I will not contest the fact that the function of the newspapers is to inform, but when it comes to health scares, they might well be literate but they are far from numerate, their copy fails to apply reason and the thinking that informs their dissemination of that news story lacks objectivity as they plumb the depths of sensationalist incomprehensibility to produce unbelievable headlines.

Undeserving experts

The blame however cannot be placed entirely on the newspapers even though they are probably best advised to give health scares a wide berth just as readers are supposed to resist the urge to charge as bulls to the matador; propagating these stories until they go viral for the want of an appropriate term and an urban legend is born.

On the matter of grilled meat which is a delicacy called suya in Nigeria the medical expert on the occasion of World Cancer Day proffered that “Cancer cells thrive in an acid environment,” and with that seemingly categorical statement suggested, “A beef based diet is acidic, especially when burnt, so avoid suya and processed meats.”

The assertion about cancer cells was quite quickly debunked by doing a search on the most outlandish statement on Google which lead to http://www.snopes.com the website that pricks urban legends and provides incontrovertible fact over fiction, fable and fallacy.

Facts off course

The statement was false, it was attributed to Johns Hopkins University and circulated via email to the many gullible readers who passed it on without verifying the claims, it was so serious that Johns Hopkins University released a comprehensive email completely rubbishing each one of the claims including the one the medical expert with all the authority of a forum made for public consumption.

Now, indeed there are dangers in practicing oral sex and there is medical or scientific study that suggests the presence of the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) might well make people susceptible to types of oral cancer.

Experts at quackery

That piece of information coming from the Chief Dental Officer of the Federal Ministry of Health was welcome and useful, however, when the expert veered off into the moralisation and societal consequences of the use of the mouth, she had tangentially departed the commonsense bounds of scientific rigour and defaulted to a quackery of the most impressionable kind reminiscent of snake-oil merchants and street-corner confidence tricksters.

The greater concern is if on the one hand medical experts cannot be trusted to properly validate studies through basic research and verifiable facts and on the other hand they fail to appreciate their limits of the expertise before delving into social commentary that has no basis in incontrovertible truth, fact and unimpeachable scientific data, we find ourselves at the mercy of seemingly esteemed professionals operating as quacks.

The cancer of the mind

In essence, not only do we face the danger of cancer in whatever form attacking the body; a cancer of the mind even leaves us more vulnerable to risk-prone, hardly meticulous and assuming people whose guesswork and absence of logic in the process of medical diagnosis might be more fatal than a double tap.

It is then no wonder that Nigeria suffers a serious health crisis if those with ultimate responsibility cannot ensure they get their facts right before they scare us witless with laughable fables.

Blacks after slavery

On a more educational note, I came across a link to a PBS documentary about Black in Latin America narrated by the esteemed Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. who finds global fame in being the black man who on identifying himself as the owner of his own residence still ran afoul of the law in God’s own America.

He expounded on how slavery took Africans to Hispaniola, Brazil, Mexico, Peru and Cuba and where the black race after slavery stands today and in comparison to the United States of America. The whole series makes really compelling viewing as it draws you in and the shocks you.

One rather interesting refrain suggested that long-term relationships were rarely formed in many cases between races but somehow sex appeared to be colour-blind. One should take the time to carefully view every single episode and if well-disposed a contribution to the service would also be welcome. You can find the homepage at Black in Latin America | PBS

Acknowledgements

The 234Next Newspaper piece titled ‘Grilled meat can cause cancer’ appeared in February and the news story published yesterday by The Nation Online Nigeria it was ‘Beware! Oral sex causes mouth cancer, Fed Govt warns.’

The Time Magazine did publish information about the study Oral Sex Can Add to HPV Cancer Risk in April 2007 and so did the BBC with the title Oral sex linked to mouth cancer as far back as February 2004; with a BBC3 documentary aired in January 2011 that stuck with the substance of the report.

The findings of the study itself were published in the New England Journal of Medicine with the title Case–Control Study of Human Papillomavirus and Oropharyngeal Cancer downloadable as a PDF file in May 2007.

The Snopes website debunked the “Cancer cells thrive in an acid environment” assertion by publishing the full false email attributed to Johns Hopkins University and the each point in that email for further rubbished by the university in a publication titled - Cancer Update Email -- It's a Hoax! And this as far back as April 2009.

The Henry Louis Gates arrest controversy as documented by Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia is just what it is.