Smackhead Olympics.

Or as it's more formally known the AIDS 2010 Conference which is being held in Vienna, Austria until July 23rd 2010. http://www.aids2010.org

Mainly organised by multi-national drugs companies and bottom bothering Jews time is not infinite enough for me to list everything that is wrong with this conference. However the fact it has special, segregated facilities to keep the HIV+ delegates away from the "normal people" kind of makes me wish I had full blown AIDS just so I would soon be removed from a world where stupidity like this is allowed to persist.

Unfortunately this conference is largely funded by Britain's Department For International Development (DFID). As such it is closely related to the World Cup and Cheryl Cole's Malaria scare meaning it is something that I have to comment on. In doing this I have to be very careful. Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) most certainly can cause Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). AIDS is almost 100% fatal so the correct medical advice is not to catch it.

That said most of what passes for common knowledge about HIV/AIDS in the developed world is in fact wrong. It dates back to the panic of the early 1980's when thousands of people suddenly started dropping dead and no-one had any idea why. In the thirty years since then it has been discovered that HIV is much less infectious then other Sexually Transmitted Infection's (STI's) like Herpes and Gonorrhea. It is also much less damaging to health then STI's like Syphilis or Hepatitis. While there are some people who are fully immune to HIV most people have some level of natural immunity to the virus. As such it can remain almost dormant in an infected person for literally decades. When it does eventually start causing problems disease progression can be slowed almost to a complete halt through a combination of drug therapies and a good diet that can include vitamin pills. Although I don't have the exact figures to hand this means that a significant proportion (30-40%) of HIV+ people will not contract AIDS and will die of a completely unrelated natural cause. So in developed countries like the UK HIV is no longer considered a fatal disease. Instead it is classed as a manageable health problem like Diabetes or Asthma.

In developing countries that don't have access to drug therapies and have problems with malnutrition the situation is completely different. In these countries HIV leads to AIDS in almost 100% of cases and AIDS is almost always fatal. Quite apart from the tragedy of millions of people being killed needlessly this has a devastating effect on society within those countries. With everyone dying in the 30's and 40's not only are the extended childcare networks of cousins and grandparents being wiped out the parents themselves are being killed meaning that there is no-one left to raise the next generation. Also with a career that would last 30 years in a developed country only lasting 15 years in a developing country these countries don't have enough people to do essential work like farming. This shortening of peoples careers also means that the brightest and the best in these societies are unable to study and become experts in areas required to develop the science and technology sectors of their economies. Or as Thebo Mbeki more succinctly put it; "HIV doesn't cause AIDS. Poverty causes AIDS" and AIDS makes poverty much, much worse.


In the run up to the 2010 conference Britain was trying to promote the idea that HIV is much less deadly then people think in order to get African leaders to switch their focus onto other health issues like Malaria. Although a significant part of this strategy is that the AIDS pandemic has not killed nearly as many darkies as Britain had hoped and they're looking for ways to speed it up the strategy is mainly to pave the way for changes Britain's International Development Budget. Although the new British Government has announced that it will not be cutting its International Aid Budget the way it will refocus its spending will translate into real term cuts. It has already been announced that DFID's budget will be used to fund a 40% increase in spending in Afghanistan where Britain is currently preforming the most expensive surrender in military history. Elsewhere Britain will be concentrating it's spending on more espionage themed development project that get British NGO's asking foreign governments questions like; where do you get your water from, what sort of power stations are you using and how many troops can your army stand in a time of emergency? The will also continue to fund groups that support gay women's rights to stir up ethnic tension in countries with large natural resource reserves. Obviously this doesn't leave much money to spend on legitimate development projects.

As for the 2010 conference as a whole it will concentrate on forging links between Europe and Central Asian nations in order to combat HIV transmission through injecting drug use. In order to get from Europe to Central Asia you need to bulldoze through a part of the world known as the Middle East. So the subtext for the entire conference is targeting Afghan opium routes.

On the plus side though this conference does emphasise why I entitled to charge such high fees. After all my time is clearly far to precious to be wasted on jumped up local councils. After all the sessions on hepatitis control and vertical transmission should be very interesting. That last topic actually still makes me so angry that I find it easier to function by not carrying the details of it around in my head everyday.