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Haitian-Americans fault report on spreading of AIDS, many feelstigmatized again by new research tracing spread | Haiti examines claim it was AIDs stepping stone 2 December 2007 Recommended HLLN Links: Defamed! – Page 1, – Page 2, Pg. 3, Pg. 4 and Pg. 5 Vaccinate Haiti! www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/defamed4.html#vaccinateHaiti Haitians Didn’t take this Bitter Pill in 1990, Won’t take it in 2007 www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/defamed3.html#kawonabo En Memoires Des Arawaks et Tainos D’Haiti www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/defamed3.html#arawaks In memory of the Arawaks and Tainos of Haiti, the Island’s name is Haiti, not Hispaniola as the newscasters insist, Columbus’s sailors brought syphilis to the Island and decimated the Amerindians population, not the converse… www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/dessalines.html#3 *** “… In the sixteenth century, Europeans insisted that syphilis originated n Haiti, and was brought back by Columbus’ sailors. (the converse now appears to have been the case.)”Excerpted from: The Uses of Haiti (1994, updated 2005) —by Paul Farmer ******* “….Another common practice among European explorers was to give “smallpox blankets” to the Indians. Since smallpox was unknown on this continent prior to the arrival of the Europeans, Native Americans did not have any natural immunity to the disease so smallpox would effectively wipe out entire villages with very little effort required by the Europeans. William Fenton describes how Europeans decimated Native American villages in his 1957 work “American Indian and White relations to 1830….In less than three generations the settlers would turn all of New England into a charnel house for Native Americans, and fire the economic engines of slavery throughout English-speaking America. Plymouth Rock is the place where the nightmare truly began. (The Black Commentator, The History of Thanksgiving) ******* Coincidence or Intentional? – Is there an International plan to depopulate and exterminate a large portion of Haiti’s population? by Ezili Dantò, November 4, 2006 | www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/conspiracy.html#neocolon Vaccinate Haiti – Beware of UN/World Health Organization vaccines for the poor and black | Dangers of the Tetanus and Polio Vaccines |Maryland Schools (USA) Have Huge Stake in Coerced Vaccinations – Medical Tyranny in Maryland: Parents threatened with jail time for not vaccinating their children – The monies being made by the New East Indian companies of this century at expense of the life, liberty and the good health of the huddled masses… https://lists.riseup.net/www/arc/ezilidanto/2007-11/msg00024.html – Haitian-Americans fault report on spreading of AIDS Many feel stigmatized again by new research tracing spread By Ruth Morris | South Florida Sun-Sentinel, South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com December 1, 2007 sun-sentinel.com/features/health/sfl-flrndhiv1201pndec01,0,2808001.story – Haiti examines claim it was AIDS stepping stone afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iIxIsdOPMMNJu0g7GYjaSTRKL_4Q Haitian-Americans fault report on spreading of AIDS Many feel stigmatized again by new research tracing spread By Ruth Morris | South Florida Sun-Sentinel, South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com December 1, 2007 sun-sentinel.com/features/health/sfl-flrndhiv1201pndec01,0,2808001.story Haitian-Americans are calling for an independent review of an AIDS study they say again stigmatizes them in the spread of HIV. Activists, lawyers and health workers say the new research, based on genetic analysis of blood samples from three early Haitian patients in South Florida, could bring back discrimination they endured in the early 1980s. At that time, health officials singled out Haitians as being at increased risk for the virus that causes AIDS and banned them from donating blood. The controversy around the new study — by evolutionary biologist Michael Worobey of the University of Arizona — overlaps with the good news last week that HIV is actually less prevalent globally than originally thought, and with World AIDS Day, which is observed around the world today. But Haitian-Americans in South Florida say the Worobey report reopens an old wound. “My initial reaction: This is just more of the same,” said Jeff Cazeau, president of the Haitian Lawyers Association, of the Worobey study. By comparing analysis of the three 25-year-old blood samples to others from around the world, the report asserts today’s most widespread subtype of HIV emerged in Haiti in the 1960s, then spread to the United States a few years later. The timeline suggests to many that Haiti was a stepping-stone for the infection on its journey from Africa to the United States, but it does not conclude a Haitian immigrant brought the disease to the United States. Cazeau said his group is seeking records from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to determine whether Worobey’s team were authorized to use the blood samples at the root of the research. Haitian physicians, meanwhile, have been encouraging scientists to take a second look at the data. “Haitians historically have been used as scapegoats,” said Marleine Bastien, a Haitian-American activist who cared for Haitian immigrant patients in South Florida in the 1980s as a clinical social worker. The current sharp response to the study derives from abuses from that time, she said, when Haitians were tested for HIV at higher rates than other people, and then blamed for bringing the disease to South Florida shores. “This had a devastating impact. Haitians were fired from employment. They were denied access to housing,” she said. “Calling someone Haitian became the worst curse.” Creole radio host Ancy Louis, of Greenacres, said he doubted the findings would bring a new stigma on his community, however, since people are better educated on AIDS today. “We’re becoming more mature. Everything is about education,” he said. The study, published a month ago in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also notes a “high prevalence” of AIDS in Haitian immigrants in the United States soon after the infection was identified. Eventually health officials came up with the “four H club” to denote risk factors: hemophilia, homosexuality, heroin use and being Haitian. Dr. Art Fournier, associate dean of community health at the University of Miami, noted many Americans traveled to Haiti as sex tourists in the 1960s and ‘70s, and could easily have brought HIV back with them. “We have to move beyond medical ‘detectivism,’” said Fournier, author of The Zombie Curse on HIV in Haiti. “It’s not about nationality. It’s that the people who were infected were poor, therefore exploited, therefore infected.” Ruth Morris can be reached at rmorris@sun-sentinel.com or 305-810-5012. Copyright © 2007, South Florida Sun-Sentinel Haiti examines claim it was AIDS stepping stone PORT-AU-PRINCE (AFP) — As the world marks AIDS day on Saturday, Haitian scientists are assessing a claim that the impoverished country was a stepping stone in the global spread of the deadly disease. The claim has infuriated Haitian authorities who said it could stigmatize the Caribbean nation, and promptly ordered the creation of a scientific task force to investigate the allegation. A study published last month said the strain of HIV that touched off the US AIDS epidemic and fueled the global scourge of the disease came to the continent from Africa via Haiti. “Haiti was the stepping stone the virus took when it left central Africa and started its sweep around the world,” said Michael Worobey, an assistant professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona in Tucson, and senior author of the paper. He said the virus probably arrived on US shores in about 1969, more than a decade before the full-blown US AIDS crisis of the 1980s, and may have been carried there by a single Haitian immigrant. “Professor Worobey’s study could cause prejudice against the Haitian community because of its stigmatizing nature,” Haitian authorities said in a statement this week. “The Haitian government formed a task force made up of Haitian and foreign specialists in order to achieve objective and scientific arguments,” the health ministry said. The group is made up of about 20 medical experts, mainly from the Haitian GHESKIO research group that works in collaboration with the US Cornell university. “We are working with foreign specialists to prepare a scientific response to this study,” Health Minister Robert Auguste told AFP. The recent study had stirred outrage in Haiti, where many see it as racist. “There are different theories about HIV/AIDS. Professor Worobey did not bring any solution with his study,” said Amadou Mbaye, who heads the UNAIDS office in Haiti. The study also stirred widespread anger among the large Haitian community in New York. “Within the Haitian community, we consider the study as an attack against Haitians,” said Jean Robert Desrouleaux, a medical doctor. The study sought to answer the riddle as to how the virus got to the United States from central Africa, where it first surfaced in humans around 1930 after jumping species from chimpanzee to man. Worobey and a team of international researchers conducted genetic analyses of archived blood samples from early AIDS patients who migrated from Haiti to the United States. Forwarded by the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network Recommended HLLN Links: HLLN Recommended Links on the Origins of Aids/HIV www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/defamed1.html#origin Possible Media Bias on coverage of Gilbert/Worobey report www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/defamed1.html#media Haitians May Sue Over HIV Research Claim www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/defamed4.html#sue World famous Aids/HIV scholar, Luc Montagnier, rejects Worobey’s theory www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/defamed5.html#sum www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/defamed5.html#montagnier Commentary: Haiti, the international scapegoat! by Jean H. Charles, Nov. 23, 2007, Caribbean Net News |www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/defamed4.html#heros Formation d’un task force de médecins pour démonter la thèse d’un professeur américain selon laquelle le sida aurait ete introduit aux etas-Uuis par des haïtiens | www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/defamed5.html#taskforce |
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