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Contributors
Cliff Kincaid- Contributor
Cliff Kincaid, serves as editor of the Accuracy
in Media (AIM)
Report. A veteran journalist and media critic, Cliff has
appeared on the Fox News programs Hannity & Colmes and
The O'Reilly Factor, where he debated O'Reilly on global
warming, the death penalty,
and the homosexual agenda. He was a guest co-host on CNN's Crossfire
(filling in for Pat Buchanan) in the 1980s, where he confronted
the then-Libyan Ambassador to the U.N. with evidence of Libyan
involvement in international terrorism. Through his America's
Survival, Inc., organization (www.usasurvival.org), he has been
an advocate on behalf of the families of victims of terrorism
and has published reports and held conferences critical of the
United Nations. His articles have appeared in the Washington
Post, Washington Times, Chronicles, Human Events, Insight, and
other publications. He served on the staff of Human Events for
several years and was an editorial writer and newsletter editor
for former National Security Council staffer Oliver North at
his Freedom Alliance educational foundation. He has written or
co-authored nine books on media and cultural affairs and foreign
policy issues. Cliff is married and has three sons.[go to
Kincaid index]
 Another
U.N. Scandal
Phony figures on AIDS...
[Cliff Kincaid] 12/2/04
Dan Rather
apologized for using bogus documents against President Bush
and it became a scandal that haunts CBS. But there have
been no apologies or even investigations concerning the media’s
use of bogus statistics about AIDS and whether the U.S. Government’s
spending of approximately $150 billion for domestic and international
HIV/AIDS programs has been justified. President Bush has pledged
an additional $15 billion to fight AIDS.
As “World AIDS Day” on
December 1 came and went, the public should realize that there
is very little testing of
people around the world to see if they actually have the HIV
virus.
In a story about
journalist Jim Wooten’s new book about
AIDS in Africa, Linton Weeks of the Washington Post said that, “Statistics
for AIDS in Africa are so overwhelmingly depressing they make
your eye sockets throb.” He went on to cite AIDS figures
from the U.N. that, by the world body’s own admission,
are “estimates” based on assumptions that have been
revised downward because of “improved methodologies.”
A U.N. website admits
that there have been “steady improvements
in the modeling methodology,” along with “better
data” from individual countries, which have led to “lower
global HIV/AIDS estimates, not just for the current year but
also for past years…”
In Kenya in Africa, the U.N. had once estimated the number of
HIV/AIDS cases at 15 percent of the population. But a subsequent
study put the number much lower, at 6.7 percent. Even this figure
may be suspect, however. It was based on a survey of only about
8,500 households. A smaller number of those were actually tested.
In Africa, described
by the Post as “a mass-grave in the
making,” you don't even have to have HIV to be diagnosed
with AIDS. If you’re sick and have a certain number of
symptoms or health problems, you can be counted as an AIDS statistic.
John Donnelly of the
Boston Globe came forward last June to cast doubt on the numbers,
noting that “Estimates of the
number of people with the AIDS virus have been dramatically overstated
in many countries because of errors in statistical models and
a possible undetected decline in the pandemic…”
In a more recent story
he noted that the U.N. now estimates that 37.2 million adults
ages 15 to 49 and 2.2 million children
around the world were infected with HIV, “which it called
the highest number ever.” In fact, he noted, the U.N. had
put out estimates in previous years that were higher by several
million.
To understand how
wild and misleading the figures can be, consider that Donnelly
also wrote a June 16, 2002, story about how the
National Intelligence Council, an arm of the CIA, had warned
that the AIDS crisis “will rapidly worsen, with the number
of cases doubling in sub-Saharan Africa in five years…” The
number of cases was actually estimated downward.
If this wasn’t enough of a problem, some of the drugs
being rushed to those who are said to have AIDS don’t work.
Abner Mason, Executive
Director of the AIDS Responsibility Project, notes that some
anti-AIDS generic drugs distributed to Africa
and endorsed by such entities as the U.N. and the Clinton Foundation
have been taken off the market because they weren’t properly
tested and shown to be effective.
What’s more, in Africa and other areas of the world, U.N. “peacekeepers” have
been caught raping the people, including children, they are supposed
to protect. What’s not reported is that the U.N. doesn’t
test its own troops for HIV before deploying them. So the U.N.
is not only contributing to the hideous crime of pedophilia,
but is undoubtedly contributing to the spread of AIDS.
The good news, at least for the U.N., is that the bureaucrats
have successfully managed one program. The U.N. Pension Fund
is now worth over $25 billion.
When I asked the U.S.
Mission to the U.N. whether those pension-fund monies should
help pay for the proposed “modernization” of
U.N. headquarters in New York, I was told “this fund was
created to provide benefits for retiring UN staff” and
any other purpose would not be justified. John Kerry’s
sister is among the employees at the U.S. Mission to the U.N.
The Bush administration has offered the U.N. a 30-year loan to
pay for the $1 billion project.
As a three-day AIDS Conference unfolded at U.N. headquarters
back in 2001, the world body spent $67,650 for red window film
used to create the impression of a giant AIDS red ribbon on the
side of the headquarters building at night.
This appearance of caring is also what drives the media coverage
of AIDS. The facts have been shunted aside. tRO
copyright
2004 Accuracy in Media
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