Members of RSS and other readers of allstat may at some
time have looked at the WWW pages (*) which I publish
concerned with the poor standard of the reasoning which has
been applied regarding the widespread and influential belief
that AIDS is caused by infection by the HIV virus, and
my suggestion that statisticians in particular should be
taking a leading role in reviewing the reasoning. These pages
were last updated on 18-May-99. At the turn of a new year I
have been considering whether my account may need reviewing.
I note that international news reporting continues to describe
siuations of millions (sic) of persons suffering/dying from
AIDS in Zambia and other countries of sub-Saharan Africa.
This is puzzling when set alongside the situation in the UK
that AIDS remains confined to specific risk groups, with about
100 deaths per annum, and with most people in the UK not knowing
an AIDS sufferer.
There are several reasons for distrusting the huge figures
reported for the African countries - notably lack of knowledge
of the reporting conditions along with the situation that
Immune Deficiency (the 'ID' part of 'AIDS') is characteristic
of malnutrition and of long-established tropical diseases.
However, the thought of the amount of suffering involved in so
many deaths makes me wish to give some more complete account of
this situation.
I have never visited these parts of the world and do not have any
trusted personal contacts there. So I here ask if anyone reading
this message can give me any pointers into ways to assess the
reliability of these huge reported figures, and of how AIDS or
HIV status may be established in these places.
Please reply to me directly. I will provide a brief notice
when my WWW resource gets updated, and a separate summary if
this is asked for.
Norman Marsh
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('*') http://www.liv.ac.uk/~jw34/epidem_logic/main.html
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