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A businessman who was confronted about the disappearance of more than half a million pounds said ‘That’s me finished’ before going home and killing his wife and daughter with a mallet.
Flower wholesaler Hugh McFall then hanged himself at his lock-up.
His business had faced collapse because a company he supplied found serious accounting discrepancies, an inquest heard yesterday.

Hugh McFall, 48, beat his daughter Francesca, 18, to death before hanging himself, the inquest heard
McFall left a note next to the bodies of his wife Susan and daughter Francesca reading: ‘I love you more than anything I have ever loved. I couldn’t let you suffer. Daddy XX’.
But the inquest heard that the outwardly respectable company boss may have led a sordid secret life after records showed his computer had been used to access HIV testing websites, escort agencies and torture sites.

Beaten to death: McFall’s wife Susan, 58, pictured here with her daughter Francesca, was also killed
A news article relating to Christopher Foster, a millionaire businessman who murdered his family and set his house on fire after falling into financial ruin had also been researched.
The killer had lived just a few miles from the McFall home.
The inquest heard that McFall, 48, ran a business called Growing Places in Oswestry, Shropshire, and had supplied nearby family-run superstore Stans with flowers and plants for more than 15 years.
The contract accounted for 90-95 per cent of his income.
He and his family led an enviable lifestyle, regularly taking holidays to destinations such as Monte Carlo and going skiing.
Miss McFall, 18, had attended the £12,000-a-year private Oswestry School and was a former head girl there.
Her father drove a £30,000 Land Rover and was a member of the Shropshire Sailing Club.
He became such a trusted supplier at Stans that, as the family-run store expanded, its bosses allowed him to deliver goods without counting the orders. But in January 2010, the store conducted a review of its sales and the performance of each of its departments.
Justin Smart, general manager of the store, told the inquest he believed the company had overpaid McFall ‘well over half a million pounds over seven years’.
They summoned him to a meeting on February 4 this year, the day before his death, and asked him where the money had gone. He denied any wrongdoing and offered to supply invoices.
But as he couldn’t account for the missing money, they suspended him as a supplier with immediate effect and told him they would be consulting the police.
His parting words to the store owners were: ‘That’s me finished.’

Family home: The house in Oswestry where McFall killed his family
Andrew Faulks, one of the owner’s of Stans, said: ‘We wanted to confront Hugh about the losses.
‘I was very upset. We had a good relationship with Hugh and part of me was hoping he’d come out with something to say we were wrong. We just didn’t want to believe what was happening.’
Coroner John Ellery added: ‘He would have left that meeting knowing that his almost sole customer had stopped dealing with him immediately and that there may have been a criminal investigation with the police.’
After the meeting ended, McFall went back home.
That night, he murdered his 58-year-old bank worker wife with one blow while she lay in bed. He then clubbed his daughter to death with at least five blows over the head, also striking two to the arm as she reached up to defend herself.
He is then thought to have dragged her, possibly while she was still alive, on to the bed beside his wife, before going to his industrial lock-up and hanging himself from the roof.
They were both found in the blood-stained bed with men’s ties around their neck after McFall phoned police telling them: ‘I’ve done something awful.’
The couple had been married for 20 years, though Mrs McFall had children from a previous marriage. Outside the house, he left a note for his brother-in-law saying: ‘Neil – don’t go inside.’
The inquest at Shrewsbury Magistrates Court heard that records taken from home computers show a user repeatedly searching for HIV testing at clinics, torture pictures and browsing escort websites.
The user also looked up how to commit euthanasia and accessed a website about the death of Christopher Foster.
Foster, 50, murdered his wife Jillian, 49, and daughter Kirstie, 15, in August 2008, a year-and-a-half before McFall’s killing spree.
The inquest continues.

Source: dailymail

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1. It is a great pleasure for me to address you on this occasion to mark the formal announcement and launch of the Second Phase of the African Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Partnerships (ACHAP) for a further five years of support to Botswana’s HIV response. As has already been mentioned, our partnership as a country with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and MSD, is now in its tenth year.

2. HIV/AIDS remains the greatest health and development challenge that Botswana has faced over the past two and a half decades, and indeed will continue to face for several years to come. You will be aware of the extent to which HIV/AIDS impacted negatively on many of our health and socio-development indicators, undoing many of the hard earned gains achieved over a number of years in health outcomes, life expectancy, economic growth and our ability to address many development needs which have had to be put on hold as we dedicated resources to fighting this epidemic.

3. When the partnership with ACHAP was established in the year 2000, our epidemic was at its peak, mortality among young people was extremely high, with adult mortality having risen almost fourfold. Child health indicators on which we had made tremendous progress since independence were deteriorating as a result of the impact of mother to child transmission, and most significantly the impact of HIV/AIDS on parents’ ability to look after their children as their own health deteriorated and many died. The burden on our health services was such that our medical and paediatric wards were not coping, with about 60% of bed occupancy being HIV/AIDS related. Without a public sector treatment programme, it was estimated that less than 5% of the people needing treatment were receiving it. Tuberculosis, a disease which until the mid eighties was declining in incidence, experienced a strong resurgence and became the leading cause of death among patients dying of AIDS and remains so today.

4. Botswana had no option but to mount a strong and concerted response to this epidemic. Given the magnitude of our epidemic, the scale of the response certainly required much more in terms of skilled human resources, infrastructure, and financial resources than a developing economy such as ours could alone provide. We recognised that the resources required meant that difficult development choices would need to be made, and that the formation of strategic partnerships would be critical. As we look back over the past ten years, I firmly believe we should take pride in what our partnership achieved over a very important decade in our response. In many respects, the past decade and key developments in this period shaped the future of HIV/AIDS responses in the developing world, and sub-Saharan Africa in particular. As many of you will know, a number of the notable achievements or lessons of what could be achieved in sub-Saharan African setting took place in Botswana, and ACHAP played an important role in the process.

5. Dr. Rosenblatt, I therefore take this opportunity to thank you and MSD, and similarly through you Ambassador Lange, my profound thanks to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for the generous support you have provided over the past years. As has been mentioned, between the years 2001 to 2009, the partnership donated an amount of US$ 106.5 million to fund various programmes and interventions. In addition, MSD has donated ARV medicines with a value in excess of US$ 66 million by December 2009. This gesture has literally helped save many lives. This has been a huge contribution which has made a tremendous difference to our fight against this disease.

6. If one is to look back briefly over the past ten years; and the many areas of support, there have been a few defining moments or achievements that have been important landmarks in Botswana’s response and in some ways the global response as well.

7. As we speak today, over 90% of those in need of treatment are now receiving it. ACHAP’s contribution to this achievement which significantly changed the face of the epidemic in Botswana has been immeasurable. Together we have succeeded in providing treatment on a truly national scale; have given hope to tens of thousands of patients, and to their families and dependants. This achievement, with the assistance of ACHAP and later other partners such as PEPFAR, has changed HIV/AIDS from an almost certain death sentence to a disease in which people can still live with hope, continue to work, see their children grow and contribute to the growth and success of this country. Perhaps what is most significant is that together we have been able to demonstrate to Africa and to the world that indeed it is possible to deliver an effective treatment programme on a national scale in a developing country setting in sub-Saharan Africa. In some way it may well be this success which inspired other initiatives through multilateral organisations such as WHO and UNAIDS, the PEPFAR programme, the Global Fund to provide the kind of resources that have also transformed the responses of other countries in our region and beyond. If indeed this is the case, then one of the most important objectives of this partnership, i.e., providing lessons from which the national and global response could benefit has been realised.

8. The introduction of the routine testing and counselling at health facilities is another area in which Botswana proved to be a pioneer. The full support of ACHAP in discussions and advocacy efforts at national level, as well as later financial support for implementation of the programme through the provision of rapid test kits to Government and civil society organisations is greatly appreciated. I am informed that ACHAP at one point met up to 40% of national rapid test kit requirements. This helped ensure the success of our routine HIV testing effort, significantly improving uptake of both treatment and PMTCT services, and going a long way in helping Botswana achieve its universal access targets. This support combined with ACHAP’s support for the training of lay counsellors through your partnership with a local NGO, BOCAIP, helped improve uptake of PMTCT services from rates around 34% in 2003 to 94% by 2010, leading to the impressive success of PMTCT with transmission rates of less than 4%.

9. I am informed that a core part of ACHAP’s work in your second phase will focus on prevention interventions targeting young people aged 15 – 29. ACHAP’s support for youth focussed initiatives targeting both in and out of school youth in your first phase played an important role in helping us kick start prevention programmes working with young people. I am pleased to learn that in ACHAP’s first phase you worked with and supported in different ways several civil society organisations, from national network organisations, district multi-sectoral AIDS committees and community based organisations involving people living with HIV/AIDS. While there is still a long way to go in building the capacity of such organisations, and indeed achieving greater success in our prevention efforts, it is important for it to be recognised that the growth and sustainability of our civil society movement will be key to long term success against this epidemic.

10. Three years ago, ACHAP provided important support to NACA for the development of the National Plan for scaling up HIV prevention. I am informed that this is the main thrust of the support that ACHAP intends to provide in its second phase. Prevention is also the top priority of our Second National Strategic Framework for the period 2010 – 2016, so I am pleased to note that ACHAP continues to align itself to our national priorities.

11. I would like first and foremost to thank both MSD and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for having found it fit to commit to a further five year period of support to ACHAP and Botswana’s HIV response. A financial commitment of US$ 60 million in these very difficult and uncertain economic times is something for which I personally, my government and the people of Botswana are very grateful. We know that there are many needs beyond our own borders, and would like to believe that a commitment of this scale is a vote of confidence in our partnership and what it has achieved, but one which we do not take for granted.

12. As I draw towards closing, I wish to take this opportunity to indicate to our partners in this endeavour that our commitment as a country to winning the fight against this epidemic remains firm. We will continue to commit what we can of our own resources to fighting this epidemic as this is our problem. We are grateful to the growing support that we have received from the donor community over the years. As a sign of our commitment, 70% of HIV/AIDS expenditure as shown by the latest national spending assessment has been from Botswana’s own domestic funds. We hope that this commitment on our part will encourage you as partners to continue to support us, knowing that your support builds on our own efforts and together we will make meaningful progress.

13. It is therefore my honour and pleasure to declare the second phase of ACHAP’s support to Botswana for the period 2010 – 2014 officially launched. I thank you.

B1b) 30/8/10: VOTE OF THANKS BY THE MINISTER FOR PRESIDENTIAL AFFAIRS AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION HON LESEGO ETHEL MOTSUMI ON THE OCCASSION OF THE LAUNCH OF THE SECOND PHASE OF THE AFRICAN COMPREHENSIVE HIV/AIDS PARTNERSHIP

[Salutations}…Ladies and Gentlemen,

1. It is indeed a pleasure and honour for me to give the vote of thanks on this important occasion: the launching of ACHAP’s Second Phase of support to our national HIV response. First let me thank His Excellency the President for having taken time out of his very busy schedule to be with us today, and to officially launch this Second Phase. Your leadership and drive are a great source of inspiration to us all. It has been in large part of your firm conviction and support, and that of your predecessor, Former President Mogae, that have been the driving force behind the success of this unique partnership and the progress it has helped us make.

2. Secondly, I wish also to extend my most sincere thanks on behalf of the Government and people of Botswana to our partners at MSD / The Merck Company Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for their generous support. The strength of our partnership has changed the course of the epidemic in this country, and made an immense difference in the lives of Batswana.

3. When we contemplated launching a national ARV treatment program 10 years ago, it looked to some like an unwise venture. Many thought it was an impossible undertaking, and a questionable use of resources. However, we and our partners at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and MSD believed that if we committed ourselves to this task it could be done. We started the programme against what seemed like tremendous odds in terms of human resources, finances, and infrastructure; but together we kept the faith. Government was convinced that our best hope for saving a whole generation of young people from an almost certain death was the success of the ARV programme. Failure was not an option; it was not part of our vocabulary.

4. Now, 10 years on, as we launch a second phase of support, it gives me great pleasure to reflect on the successes of our public-private partnership, and to be able to thank you Mr Clark for your extraordinary leadership and vision. Similarly, thanks must go to all the people at MSD who have been involved with and supported this initiative over the years. MSD has an outstanding reputation for corporate social responsibility, and the excellent work that the Merck Company Foundation has done over the past 50 years is something that we in Botswana have been able to experience firsthand.

5. Similarly, Ambassador Lange, let me take the opportunity, on behalf of the people of Botswana, to thank you and your colleagues from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. We ask that you convey our deepest gratitude and appreciation to the leadership at the Gates Foundation for believing in us, walking the initial difficult steps with us, and helping us write the story of a brighter future for the people of this country.

6. Ladies and gentlemen, through this distinctive partnership, as well as other collaborations, nearly 150,000 people have been put on treatment in Botswana. Equally important, however, and perhaps less often discussed, is that together we started an initiative that has demonstrated to the world that nationwide ARV treatment programmes were possible in the countries of sub- Saharan Africa. This pivotal and momentous achievement created the possibility for many more people across the continent could benefit from treatment. We, as a country, are both pleased and proud that through the efforts of PEPFAR, The Global Fund to fight HIV, TB and malaria, the Clinton Foundation and others, ARV treatment for the people of Africa is now a reality. As we speak, the World Health Organisation and UNAIDS report that more than 5 million people are on treatment in low and middle income developing countries indicating, ladies and gentlemen, that the seeds this partnership has sown, have spread far beyond the borders of Botswana. Of course, as we celebrate this singular achievement, we also look forward with renewed energy to the challenges that lie ahead, and the Second Phase of ACHAP support. Thus, the presence here today of Mr. Clark and Ambassador Lange to take part in this launch of Phase II is all the more significant, and demonstrates that our partnership remains strong and determined.

7. Your commitment as partners to a Second Phase of support conveys your awareness that much work still remains to be done. We know that the needs out there are greater than the resources available. Hence, we are especially appreciative of this support during these difficult times of global economic recession. The Phase II package of sixty million dollars (close to four hundred million pula) over the next five years is a tremendous contribution, resulting in a total of US$ 165 million since ACHAP began work in 2000. Adding to this, the generous donation of ARV medicines from MSD which in ACHAP’s first phase amounted to almost US$67 million, one recognises the full extent and impact of this support on our national response.

8. Having said that, let me also assure you, on behalf of Government, that the HIV and AIDS epidemic remains a very high health and developmental priority and we will continue to invest a significant amount of our own resources in this fight.

9. While ACHAP’s best known contribution to our national response has been its support to the treatment programme, what is far less known is ACHAP’s long-term support to strengthening our Botswana’s capacity to more effectively respond to HIV and AIDS. This has included substantial assistance to the health sector in the form of staff and technical expertise to enhance the delivery of HIV services, which has had numerous secondary benefits to other areas of service provision. Equally important has been the support to the coordination of the national response through provision of key technical assistance to the National AIDS Coordinating Agency, which falls under my Ministry. In addition, ACHAP has, over the years, reached out to and worked with so many stakeholders, from the Media and Civil Society, to district level organizations and communities, helping to optimise their contributions to and impact on the national response.

10. ACHAP’s approach, combining international best practice, local level knowledge, and private sector know-how, has enabled us to move faster and reach farther. For this I would like to acknowledge and thank both past and present members of the Board of ACHAP. The Board’s support and collaboration over the years, as well as their technical support and guidance, has been of enormous assistance to us, especially as we addressed some difficult and often controversial areas such as the introduction of routine HIV testing in health facilities. You stood firm with us, and supported us to pioneer this strategy, which is now widely used internationally and has improved access to PMTCT and treatment for so many.

11. It is proper here that I should mention the important governance structure of ACHAP: the Madikwe Forum. The Forum has played a critical role in making this public-private partnership a success. It provides a platform for frank and honest discussion and has allowed for the development of a high level of trust and transparency, not generally found in such partnerships. I would therefore like to thank all the Permanent Secretaries of the Madikwe Forum Ministries for their contribution to making this partnership work over the years. I trust that as we move forward into this Second Phase, the Forum will play no less a critical role than in the 1st phase.

12. Your Excellency the President, Mr Clark, Ambassador Lange and distinguished guests, we are committed to seeing to it that this second phase will be one in which even greater things will be achieved than in the 1st phase. In the same way that our special and unique partnership showed the world what could be done in the area of treatment, I challenge all us to make this second phase one in which we demonstrate that equally great achievements can be made in the area of prevention. Together we will continue to work to turn the tide of this epidemic and bringing us closer to achieving our national vision of a generation free of HIV/AIDS by 2016.

13. Before I conclude, I would like to thank the Director of Ceremonies for effectively guiding us through the morning’s programme. I trust you will agree with me that we have witnessed a very memorable launch, and I would like to thank all who made it possible: the management and staff of ACHAP; our partner organisations; Government ministries; and civil society organisations. I would also like to thank all of you gathered here today, for having taken the time to be with us, and making this launch event the success it has been.

14. Finally my thanks also go to the staff of the GICC, for the excellent hospitality and facilities, for without your dedicated effort; such events would not be possible.

15. There is a Chinese proverb that says, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”. Over the last 25 years of our response to HIV and AIDS we have taken many steps and, with the continued support of partnerships like ACHAP, we will take many more; but our journey is far from over. Today we have gathered here many people from diverse organisations, which together constitute a significant and crucial part of our national response. However, the most important people are those outside this room: those living with the virus and their affected families and loved ones, our women and children and all key vulnerable populations, and all the Batswana, young and old, who are not yet infected with HIV. They, and the many others, which for lack of time I have not mentioned, must be at the centre of our response. Let us dedicate this second phase of support to serving them better so that one day the fight against this disease will truly be won. I thank you

Source: Zimbabwe Telegraph

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Children are bearing the brunt of an HIV-AIDS epidemic on the holiday isle

ON a flawless day in Bali, tourists are revelling in sun and surf and padding about plush hotels. Beneath the highly developed tourism industry a deepening health crisis is gripping the island.

Encapsulating the trend is a tiny Balinese girl whose unfocused gaze indicates her poor state of health. Asih, two, is pale and listless as she wanders about her home of the past year, Anak Anak Bali orphanage, or Bali Kids, in Kerobokan. Asih is having trouble fighting off a common cold. She is HIV positive and has tuberculosis, preventing her immune system from kicking in quickly.

She is one of the estimated 7317 HIV-AIDS cases in Bali, part of an epidemic, much of it heterosexually driven, dubbed an AIDS tsunami by health workers.

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Known cases are thought to be the tip of the iceberg. The infection rate has jumped 81 per cent from 4041 in late 2006, according to the Bali Department of Health. The rate is alarming not only for the exponential rise but because health providers are questioning the veracity of records.

Figures are thought to be much higher than reported and their collection is being thwarted by discrimination, social taboos and ignorance of the disease, doctors say. Local men who engage in same-sex relationships, visit sex workers without using condoms or inject drugs with infected needles are not telling of their risk-taking behaviour, even on their deathbeds.

But data shows migrant Indonesians and Balinese men, many of whom work in tourism areas, are spreading the virus from sex workers to unsuspecting spouses, corroborating a Health Department study that found 48.9 per cent of sex workers only “often use” condoms. Four times as many men as women have HIV-AIDS.

As the epidemic ravages families, a new generation is falling victim. Mothers, usually widows whose partners have died, are unknowingly transmitting the virus to children at birth. Many children are being forced into orphanages as a result.

Last month tourism officials floated the idea of legalised prostitution, while examining the risk to tourists and their possible role in promulgating the disease. Although tourists are believed to be largely unaffected, it’s unknown how many are at risk. In the firing line are Bali’s biggest fans, Australians, who contributed a whopping 56 per cent rise to foreign arrivals with 213,361 visits in the year to May compared with the same period last year.

Asih’s story, which includes family disintegration coupled with a backlash from poorly educated villagers, is typical. After Asih’s father died from AIDS-related illnesses, her HIV-positive mother fled her village in Singaraja, north Bali, when fearful villagers warned they would kill her baby if they did not leave. Both ended up in Sanglah General Hospital, Denpasar, for months. They are being treated, successfully, with antiretroviral drugs but Asih’s mother, unable to care for her child, surrendered her to Bali Kids, which offers free clinical and dental treatment, and provides mobile medical services to other orphanages and villages.

About 4000 children live in 71 orphanages around Bali, many disreputable and none of which accept known HIV-positive children, says Bali Kids’ project co-ordinator, Adelaide-born Brenton Whittaker. Yet many are sent to orphanages after their parents die of AIDS-related illnesses. Stories abound of exploitation, slave labour and funding ending up in the pockets of corrupt operators.

“At Bali Kids it’s extremely difficult for anyone to scam us because it’s medical treatment. I see the child receive the treatment, so I can see where the money’s going,” says Whittaker.

When Inquirer visits a Dickensian-looking Denpasar orphanage housing 40 children ranging from infants to teens, the owner is away indefinitely. Children cook meals, consisting of only noodles and rice, in a squalid kitchen over an open fire. An eight-storey concrete maze, it overlooks a rural back yard where clothes dry amid piles of rubbish. Girls share a small dormitory, two to a single bed, while boys sleep on a mat on the ground floor. All share an abysmal toilet facility.

Lying abandoned are countless donations of clothes and toys. This is one of the orphanages where the Bali Kids medical team regularly treats children but the owner does not permit HIV testing, which is free in hospitals and clinics.

Involved in charity work in Asia for more than 20 years, Whittaker received an Order of Australia medal for humanitarian services to children in 2005 when Bali Kids opened. Bali Kids is first a medical facility, caring for underprivileged children suffering from malnutrition and illnesses such as TB and scabies. Increasingly, it cares for impoverished HIV sufferers.

“That’s our calling because no one else wants to deal with it,” Whittaker says.

Local authorities also refer children with HIV to Bali Kids. “You see the children arrive so sick and leave happy and healthy so you feel you have achieved something,” says Whittaker, attesting to good responses to antiretroviral treatment. “Plus we are educating them . . . so they have the opportunity to get into the workforce.”

Whittaker has been instrumental in securing three scholarships in Australian private schools.

Meanwhile, the latest HIV screening study in March by the Bali Health Department reveals Bali has the second highest infection rate in Indonesia behind Jakarta and the island’s young are most vulnerable, with those in the 20 to 29 age range peaking at 46 per cent. Sexually active teenagers between 15 and 19 account for 2.3 per cent of HIV.

“We are seeing pregnant teens who have contracted HIV while at high school but we don’t have the real numbers, that’s the problem,” says consultant pediatrician Ketut Dewi Kumara Wati at Sanglah Hospital. Efforts to curb the spread are proving arduous. Many locals are unaware the virus even exists. Those who suspect they are infected typically shun testing and leave preventive treatment too late. Adding to the crisis, some hospitals turn away patients.

“It’s very hard to get medical staff and doctors to work with HIV-AIDS patients,” says Dewi, the only pediatrician at Sanglah’s children’s AIDS ward. She believes the true number of cases on the island is about 10,500.

The highest prevalence of the virus is in the capital, Denpasar, and the Buleleng and Badung (the Kuta area) regencies, tourist districts that villagers and migrants gravitate to for work.

Tourism officials are warning of the effect the virus could have on Indonesia’s top tourist spot but claim the Balinese government would rather sweep the issue under the carpet.

“They don’t want to touch this. They are confusing it with a moral issue. They don’t want to talk about sex, but it’s a health issue, a disease,” says Ida Bagus Ngurah Wijaya, head of the Bali Tourism Board. While Wijaya does not directly link tourism to transmission rates, Bali’s contact with foreigners far surpasses that of the rest of Indonesia, and intermingling is a fact.

His solution? A government-controlled prostitution zone with regulated health checks. “How can you control public health if you don’t control the sex workers?”

Yet he says a red-light district would taint the island’s image. “We cannot promote sex tourism. It would send the wrong message. People don’t come here for that.”

But it can’t be said sex tourism doesn’t exist. Sex workers in Bali attract 88,000 customers a year, this year’s report shows. And although HIV infection rates among foreigners are at negligible levels, the real situation is hard to gauge.

Figures for the second largest group with HIV, injecting drug users, estimated at 1371, have stabilised since 2002, according to the study, but the prevalence of the virus among transvestites and prisoners is increasing.

Kerobokan jail, where the Bali Nine drug traffickers and Schapelle Corby are detained, has HIV testing and counselling and the highest incidence of infection in a Bali jail, at 29 prisoners.

Most HIV programs are funded generously by AusAID, through the HIV co-operation program for Indonesia, which provided $500,000 in 2009-10. AusAID’s programs have been instrumental in bringing down infection rates among intravenous drug users. Overall it has provided more than $4.8 million for HIV-AIDS Bali programs since 2002.

Yet Bali is at risk of losing a generation, as increased numbers of HIV-positive mothers — about 600 a year — endanger their children, says Dewa Nyoman Wirawan, of the Bali Aids Commission and public health professor at Denpasar’s Udayana University.

Dewi agrees. “Without prevention many children will die. It will be the loss of a generation. Children are slow progressers and it will not show ’til they are in their teens,” she says.

A report by Wirawan last June on the UN Millennium Development Goals warns HIV-AIDS is the largest inhibitor to achieving child mortality reduction goals. “The estimated number of residents in Bali to be infected with HIV . . . will double in a very short time. The big challenge . . . is the explosion of the epidemic through heterosexual contact and the still low level of condom use.

“If there is no prevention of transmission from pregnant mother to her baby, then in one year it is expected approximately 300 infants will be infected with HIV. Usually all of these children will die . . . [in] under five years.”

The suppression of safe-sex messages because of social taboos on AIDs-related issues are at the core of the problem, says Tuti Parwati Merati, of the Bali Aids Commission, who is also head of tropical and infectious diseases at Sanglah Hospital and the University of Udayana’s medical school. With about 150 new patients admitted in the late stage each month to Sanglah Hospital, she battles the problem daily.

“More than 80 per cent of HIV-AIDS patients throughout Indonesia wait until it’s too late because they do not know they are infected by HIV,” says Merati.

Frustrating medical efforts are farcically low statistics on deaths from AIDs, estimated at 341 in total in Bali. Merati, who diagnosed the first AIDS case in Bali — and Indonesia — in 1987, suspects substantial numbers of deaths from AIDS are unreported. She concedes that awareness of the disease remains pitifully low.

Although testing and antiviral treatment is free, antibiotics and antifungal treatments are not, a factor she fears stops people following up on related illnesses.

The Balinese, about 93 per cent of whom are Hindu, do not religiously oppose condom use, but Muslims do. A safe-sex advertisement was pulled from Indonesian television stations last year because Muslim groups believed it was promoting promiscuity and adultery.

Entrenched animistic beliefs also inhibit safe-sex programs, Dewi says. People often believe their illness is related to karma or a punishment for perceived bad deeds. Some think it’s the result of a curse from an enemy and most seek help from witch doctors.

Amanda Morgan, country representative of Bali’s Burnet Institute in Indonesia, which combines health research, including HIV initiatives, with the Burnet Institute (Australia), concurs numbers are much more extensive than acknowledged, the response driven by inaccurate data.

“When you don’t have the data you have to question if you are responding in the most effective way.”

The Indonesian Ministry of Health estimates 40,000 people have HIV-AIDs, while UNAIDS puts the number at 270,000.

“We know it’s an iceberg phenomenon but as we dig deeper we are seeing increasing numbers, and particularly numbers of children, not being addressed,” Morgan says. When Putu Utami founded the outreach group Bali Plus in Denpasar in 1995, her husband had just died of AIDS-related illnesess. She found out he was gay after he died, a week after the birth of their son, now 15. She had learned of her own HIV infection six months into the pregnancy.

“My husband never told me he had AIDS. When I told him he had infected me and asked why he had the virus, he just cried.

“I was scared for my baby. I was scared I was going to die . . . I was very angry.”

Mercifully, her son is HIV-negative and Putu has responded well to treatment. She married again in 2003 and says her new husband, although initially sceptical, is accepting of her situation.

She only recently told her son, who lives with her first husband’s parents, of her HIV status. “He was very angry and sad, and asked me if his father had another girlfriend.” She pleaded ignorance. Her parents-in-law still don’t know their son was gay.

* * *

Plucked from poverty to live and learn
NI Komang Sani Asih knows how quickly life can turn around — for the better. At 19, she is experiencing the unthinkable for a child born into an impoverished village.

She is one of the fortunate few from 71 orphanages in Bali to benefit from Australians’ largesse. In Melbourne for a year after winning a scholarship, Sani’s life-changing opportunities unfolded through private orphanage Bali Kids.

Sani, from a village in Singaraja, north Bali, where her family still lives in abject poverty, is in Year 11 at Mater Christi College. Her plan — to work as an air hostess with Garuda Airlines — would be a pipe dream had she not been plucked from obscurity.

One of five children, Sani was originally farmed out to an orphanage in Denpasar when she was 13 because her parents were destitute. She was rescued three years later by Bali Kids from what were described as appalling conditions. Now mapping a bright future, the teenager hasn’t looked back.

“There is not a day that passes where she does not ask for an explanation about something, then she smiles in amazement and says thank you,” says her Melbourne host mother, Keryn Begg.

Recounting a precarious existence in Denpasar at the hands of a merciless orphanage owner, Sani says: “The boys [some no older than 10] built the eight-storey orphanage with no pay; the girls helped. We were hit by the owner . . . sometimes the children went to hospital. One boy fell off the building. The place was dirty, there were rats and no clean water.”

Sani was initially shy and quiet, with minimal reading and English language skills. She is now averaging 70 per cent in her eight subjects, including maths, accounting, economics and business management. She works a few nights a week in a Thai restaurant where she can indulge her penchant for spicy food.

“I felt nervous at first because I didn’t know anyone here and I didn’t understand your culture,” says Sani. “I did not understand much English and I wasn’t confident. There are 1000 students in my school and only 100 in my old one.”

Begg and her husband, John, say Sani is the perfect “other” daughter, complementing their own girls, Danielle, 14, and Melissa, 25.

“She has become part of our family. It’s just amazing how she’s come out of her shell. She’s adjusted and made a lot of friends.”

Long-time Bali devotees, the Beggs decided to host a child after visiting Bali Kids while on holiday last year. “It’s all very well to sit in your five-star hotel but there’s more to it than that. It’s been an amazing journey,” says Keryn Begg.

Source: The Australian

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(NaturalNews) Did you or someone you know test positive for HIV? If so, they probably weren’t told that they might test negative if a different test were used… or even if the same test were conducted in another country. HIV tests, as you’ll see here, are a wishy-washy, pseudoscientific gimmickry that has unfortunately ensnared many innocent victims into a false AIDS diagnosis.

This is now being revealed in some rather shocking video footage released by Brent Leung, creator of the House of Numbers documentary (www.HouseOfNumbers.com) which tears apart the inconsistencies and dogmatic non-science found in the conventional HIV / AIDS industry.

Watch the footage yourself right now at: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=E9FEA…

There, you’ll see world-renowned scientists discussing the so-called “western blot,” a highly subjective test that is now being used around the world to falsely diagnose people with HIV and, subsequently, AIDS. This western blot, as you’ll learn below, is a spectacularly laughable test that seems to have been designed to make “positive” criteria as loose as possible in order to label perfectly healthy people as having AIDS.

“I don’t think the western blot is a useful diagnostic test. I don’t think it’s worth doing,” argues Dr Robin Weiss in the video clip.

Val Turner, an MD from Australia, adds, “It’s ludicrous that you can be [HIV] positive in one country and not positive in another.”

Neville Hodgkinson, the Medical and Science Correspondent for The Sunday Times (London) adds, “Some people argue that we have a confirmatory test in some western countries, and that repeated testing can lead you to a safer diagnosis. But if the very basis of the test is faulty, then nothing works in fact. …Because of the different criteria that apply in different countries, you can test HIV positive in one country and be given an AIDS diagnosis as a result of that, whereas in another country you won’t test HIV positive and you won’t be given an AIDS diagnosis.”

A full-blown AIDS patient will almost always show nine different “bands” on an HIV test. But in the 1980’s, only one band was required — P24 — to diagnose someone as HIV positive (and subsequently having AIDS). The problem is that perfectly healthy people can also test positive for P24, even if they aren’t HIV positive.

“In the early days, people developed criteria that were too much like a screening test. So if you had just P24 [band], they might have called it a positive,” said Robert Redfield MD, Director, Clinical Care and Research, Institute of Human Virology.

Doctor Val Turner adds, “Many people were diagnosed using these criteria, and then it was realized that forty percent of people who are completely healthy have one or more western blot bands, most commonly a P24 band.”

A few years later, the FDA changed its diagnosis criteria for HIV, upping the requirement beyond a single P24 band. But people who had already been diagnosed as having AIDS were never re-tested!

Dr Val Turner explains, “We don’t know how many thousand people were testing using that western blot criteria before 1987, but … shouldn’t they all have been tested when the criteria changed in 1987 in case they were no longer positive? So there are probably people out there who would not be positive under the criteria which developed subsequently. Using the FDA criteria which existed before 1993, only 80 percent of AIDS patients had a positive HIV test, which means 20 percent were not positive.”

HIV tests depend on personal opinion, not rigorous science

Even today, HIV tests are conducted in a wishy-washy, non-scientific manner where the results depend largely on the opinion of the lab technician reading the test results! (It’s absurd, of course, but this is what’s happening right now.)

In House of Numbers, Brent Leung visited Claudia Kücherer, MD, a Molecular Biologist at the Robert Kock Institute in Berlin. There, he recorded this conversation:

Brent: “When you’re looking at this western blot, how do you determine what is a positive [result]?”

Claudia: “You need a certain number of bands being present. It depends a little bit on the producer of the test.”

Brent: “It depends on the manufacturer?”

Claudia: “Yes”

Brent: “Is there a different criteria for what might be a positive?”

Claudia: “Yeah, there are different criteria from the manufacturer.”

Manufacturers of the HIV test, in other words, differ in how they define a “positive.” You might be “HIV positive” on one test, but negative on another. And the decision on which manufacturer’s test to use is based on the opinion of the clinic, hospital or doctor ordering the tests.

Astonishingly, this House of Numbers footage also includes a scene featuring two different HIV test lab technicians working in the same lab who disagree on the criteria for a positive HIV test result. While one lab workers says two bands are needed for a positive diagnosis, another worker says three are required. And they work in the same lab!

Watch this footage yourself right here: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=E9FEA…

Western blot HIV test called into question

But some scientists feel the western blot is not just a good test, but a great one! Robert C Gallo MD, Director of the Institute of Human Virology, says “This has a margin of error if done properly that’s extremely low. In other words, it’s one of medicine’s better tests.”

One of medicine’s better tests? Really? And yet it can be interpreted in different ways by different lab technicians, different definitions in different countries, different manufacturers and different medical opinions?

The HIV tests, it turns out, is more a matter of opinion than scientific fact. And if you or someone you know has tested positive for HIV, maybe they should get a second opinion.

Why not make the test more accurate?

So why doesn’t the industry tighten up its guidelines and require five, six or even all nine bands to show up before diagnosing someone as HIV positive? No one seems to know.

I do, though. Isn’t it obvious? The AIDS industry is much like the cancer industry in that it’s focused on diagnosing as many patients as possible whether or not they actually have the disease. More patients equals more profits and a bigger “scare story” to feed the media propaganda machines.

We already know that the AIDS industry fabricated evidence to try to exaggerate the scope of the AIDS scare (http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=D35F0…). So it’s not surprising they would be promoting a “loose” test that potentially has already ensnared potentially tens of thousands of innocent people into a false AIDS diagnosis.

Once a person is diagnosed with AIDS, you see, they become a profit generating machine for Big Pharma. AIDS pharmaceuticals are extremely expensive, and because they are protected under an FDA-enforced monopoly, they can be sold at practically any asking price.

Even better, once innocent “healthy” people start taking AIDS drugs, they begin to show AIDS symptoms such as compromised immune systems. These side effects are caused by the drugs, of course, not by the disease, but in the minds of doctors and patients, the emergence of these scary symptoms proves that “they really had AIDS.”

It’s all just loopy, circular logic with a single purpose: To earn more money for Big Pharma at the expense of human suffering.

Now, I’m not saying there’s no such thing as a genuine person with immune deficiency. Thanks mostly to our toxic environment, there are certainly people who suffer chronic immune system malfunctions. But it is in the AIDS industry’s interests to convince even healthy people that they are ill and need pharmaceutical intervention to survive. And, by sheer coincidence (not!), today’s HIV tests are specifically designed in a way that produces a disturbingly high number of false positives.

Source: http://www.naturalnews.com/029689_western_blot_HIV_test.html

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A third of HIV-positive gay men have post-traumatic stress disorder, UK investigators report in AIDS Patient Care and STDs. Events including starting treatment, HIV-related illness, and witnessing an HIV-related death were all linked to the development of symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress disorder. Emotional responses to such events – rather than actual physical threat – were associated with the development of symptoms of posttraumatic stress.

“A wide range of HIV-related events can be of traumatic intensity for some individuals”, comment the researchers.

Life-threatening illness is recognised as a possible stressor that can lead to the development of post-traumatic stress disorder. In a standard text book for the diagnosis of mental disorders (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition Text Revision) this stress is defined as “the person experienced, witnessed, or was confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury or threat to the physical integrity of self and others”, with the individual’s emotional response involving “fear, helplessness, or horror.”

Investigators wished to see if a broad-range of HIV-related events were associated with the development of post-traumatic stress disorder. They hypothesised that experiencing one or more events would be linked with symptoms of post-traumatic stress, and that perceived threat and emotional distress would be associated with such symptoms. They also wished to see if shame-related emotions were associated with post-traumatic stress symptoms.

Their study sample included 100 HIV-positive gay men. These individuals were self-selecting, collecting their study questionnaire from an HIV service provider or downloaded it from the internet.

The patients had a mean age of 43 years, the mean number of years since diagnosis with HIV was eight, most (95%) were white, 68% had received a college education, 47% were employed, and 56% defined themselves as being single.

Overall, 33%of the sample met the diagnostic criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder.

Over half the sample (55%) reported that their HIV diagnosis was traumatic, 40% said that the experience of HIV-related symptoms caused trauma, and 30% said that they were traumatised by witnessing a death related to HIV. Other traumatic events included starting HIV treatment (19%), experiencing treatment side-effects (29%) and self-disclosing HIV status (15%).

Experiencing HIV-related symptoms was associated with feelings of physical threat, leading to the development of stress disorder.

For all the other measures emotional distress – fear, helplessness, or horror – was associated with the symptoms of post-traumatic stress.

The only socio-demographic characteristic associated with an increased risk of reporting symptoms of post-traumatic stress was under- or unemployment (p < 0.05).

Physical symptoms (p < 0.01) and witnessing an HIV-related death (p < 0.05) were all significantly associated with symptoms of traumatic stress. The investigators believe that such experiences may immediately recall the “immediate threat posed by HIV.”

The investigators were surprised to find that starting HIV treatment (p < 0.01) was strongly associated with symptoms of post-traumatic stress. Few people (27%) perceived treatment as being physically threatening. The investigators speculated that there may be “catastrophic expectations about the limitations [treatment] may impose on social or occupational functioning, thus leading to traumatic fear, or the perceived failure of…lifestyle remedies leading to traumatic helplessness.”

The inclusion of shame-related emotions in the investigators’ analysis only modestly increased the proportion of patients who could be said to have experienced a traumatic event.

Individuals living with HIV can experience long periods of good health and stability, note the investigators. However, they suggest that receiving bad test results or witnessing HIV-related illness and death could cause “intense fear, helplessness or horror” that can predict the development of symptoms of post-tr aumatic stress. They recommend that HIV doctors should be watchful for symptoms such as “reexperiencing the event, behavioural avoidance or emotional numbing.”

Limitations of the study include its cross-sectional design. The investigators also acknowledge that they were unable to control for potentially confounding factors such as social support, non-HIV-related stressors, stigma, stressful life events, and past mental health problems.

Nevertheless, the investigators believe that their study adds to the literature that associates HIV with posttraumatic stress and that this is “primarily associated with fear, helplessness, or horror as opposed to shame, humiliation, or guilt.”

Source: http://www.aidsmap.com/page/1506783/

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