Soldiers Sue S Africa Over Aids
A trade union representing South Africa’s soldiers is taking the defence ministry to court, accusing it of discriminating against people with HIV.
The South African Security Forces Union (Sasfu) says people with the Aids virus are not recruited, or if they become soldiers, are refused promotion.
The defence minister has been quoted as saying that people with HIV could not “withstand difficult missions”.
An estimated 11% of the population and 35% of the army is HIV-positive.
Sasfu deputy president Charles Jacobs said there was a policy of mandatory testing.
“Being HIV-negative is a pre-requisite to gain employment in SANDF [South African National Defence Force],” he said.
He also said that any HIV-positive soldiers were denied the chance to be deployed abroad and argued these policies were unconstitutional.
South Africa has peacekeepers in several countries but some, like Sudan, insist that potential peacekeepers take an Aids test before being deployed there.
The Aids Law Project, which is representing Sasfu, says employers have long tried to argue that people with HIV could not do strenuous jobs but said this was a “lame excuse”.
Despite the hard line attributed to the defence minister, Deputy-President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka last year gave a different message:
“HIV-positive individuals in the military should be given every opportunity to do the tasks for which they have been trained and which they are still fit to perform,” she said.
(Posted on May 22, 2008)
Comments
HIV-positive individuals should be quarantined so that this deadly virus does not spread.
Apparently the plaintiffs here feel that everyone else, not themselves, should deal with the consequences of them doing whatever it was that infected them with this deadly virus in the first place.
So what if their blood is spilled and innocent people are exposed to HIV?
Posted by Arthur V. Brandriff at 5:59 PM on May 22
So when an HIV + soldier spills a little blood on the battlefield, those around him not only have to worry about the enemy, but the prospect of contracting the hivvies from the infected soldier? Good luck, South Africa.
Posted by at 6:48 PM on May 22
You know, I keep reading how all these people in Africa are HIV positive, but they don’t seem to be dying. I am starting to lean towards Duesberg’s hypothesis that HIV is not the cause of AIDS.
Posted by Fritz Wilhelm at 7:49 PM on May 22
I wasn’t aware that the ability to communicate an incurable, fatal disease makes one a “disadvantaged minority” entitled to special treatment. Additionally, exposing a soldier with a compromised immune system to foreign pathogens sounds like an excellent way to render him unfit for duty. I learned firsthand how different germs can be between one country and another while living in Sydney. In 14 months living in Australia, I spent more time sick than in any 14 years of life in North America, and I have a very strong constitution.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 8:04 PM on May 22
Lol….a completely pragmatic policy. Anyone in SA with AIDS/HIV is going to die horribly, sooner, rather than later. Why waste training and resources, not to mention promoting future military leaders who, umm, have no future?
Posted by at 8:37 PM on May 22
There are 33 million HIV postive people in the world, with 69% of them located in Sub-Sahara Africa.
More than 25 million people have died of AIDS since 1981.
Africa has 12 million AIDS orphans.
At the end of 2007, women accounted for 50% of all adults living with HIV worldwide, and for 61% in sub-Saharan Africa.
Young people (under 25 years old) account for half of all new HIV infections worldwide.
In developing and transitional countries, 7.1 million people are in immediate need of life-saving AIDS drugs; of these, only 2.015 million (28%) are receiving the drugs.
More than 40,000 new cases of HIV/AIDS are reported each year in the U.S., and 60 percent of the people afflicted are African American per Dr. Beny J. Primm, Dir. of Addiction Research in Brooklyn. Hispanics record the second greatest number of new aids cases.
Posted by Ranger at 10:04 PM on May 22
Whether we like it or not, one of the less desirable actions of rampaging soldiers is that they rape and pillage especially on such continents as Africa where much of the development is still a century or more behind the West’s, so the official line has to be no troops with HIV = less spreading of the disease. Mind you, can an AIDS infected man (as opposed to an HIV one) still rise to the occasion?
Also, not mentioned here is the official line now where the white South African Defence Force (SADF) staff that were kicked out when the Marxist/terrorist Africa National Congress was allowed by a less than perceptive world to gain power in SA in 1994 (Since then the production of electrical power has also dropped dramatically) 90% (?) of the very skilled, experienced, non-HIV positive of course, and motivated WHITES WERE KICKED OUT as in all government departments at all levels and since in commerce (by law), were kicked out.
But the white armed forces that were fired were the same forces that in 1976> took on a Soviet supported Cuban/Angolan army (with Angolan communist troops that greatly outnumbered the South Africans in Angola and thrashed them to the extent that their Cuban General Ochoa, who was in overall command of the communist forces, was shot by a firing squad when he returned to Cuba. In communist countries, failure is not an option.
Much of the SADF mechanical equipment is reported to be broken down, and recently a computer controlled gun being tested after repairs went amok and shot several black SA troops that were using it.
Clint Eastwoood could make a credible movie about the history in the last 20 years or so of the SADF. Could be very amusing as well as poignant.
Posted by Brian Deller at 1:27 AM on May 23
“You know, I keep reading how all these people in Africa are HIV positive, but they don’t seem to be dying. I am starting to lean towards Duesberg’s hypothesis that HIV is not the cause of AIDS.”
C’mon, Fritz, don’t be delusional. HIV is indeed the virus that causes AIDS. Not everybody that has HIV will get AIDS, at least not quickly. Also, there are perhaps several strains. Also, people in Africa ARE dropping like flies from AIDS. If people take care of themselves, and have good medical care, they live a long time even after they first experience symptoms, even approaching normal lifespans. But in Africa, there is a lot of unhealthy living and poor health care.
A lot of people have herpes I and/or Herpes II, but will never experience symptoms. That’s the way viruses work. There are probably a lot of people who have HIV, but may never get sick. But don’t go injecting yourself with HIV. It’s still the cause.
Believe me, I have a friend with HIV. Straight, white, and HIV positive. He’s had it for 15 years, and not a single sign of AIDS, though the HIV drugs he takes make him leaner than a steroid-popping bodybuilder. The drugs make it impossible to store fat. It’s no picnic. Good thing he’s heavily muscled, or else he’d be a freaki’n skeleton. He knows that HIV causes AIDS.
Stop talking nonsense.
Posted by at 4:13 AM on May 23
This is irrelevant to the preparedness of the SANDF. The ones who are HIV-negative are just as useless.
Pres Thabo Mbeki has already called for the Army to assist the Police in surpressing the violence against the foreigners, but will be further embarressed when it becomes clear to all the world that his Affirmative-Action Defence Force is a toothless dog.
Posted by Commando at 5:04 AM on May 23
“HIV-positive individuals should be quarantined…”
—Arthur V. Brandriff
Cuba does exactly that with the rather alarming number of Cuban soldiers who returned from duty in Angola with the disease, as well as those whom they infected. They are given rather nice gated communities, and are not allowed to leave. This seems to have prevented a major public healt disaster there.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 11:25 AM on May 23
4:13 AM is correct. Often someone can catch a disease and act as a carrier while never showing symptoms, or the effects may be radically dfferent from one person to another. It depends on genetic predisposiion. An example is the Epstein-Barr virus. In whites, this causes mononucleosis, which is usually a harmless infection that produces cold-like symptoms for a week or two. In African blacks, it typically causes Burkitt’s lymphoma and/or nasopharangial cancer, which are very rare among non-blacks.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 5:10 PM on May 23
I read somewhere ( I forgot where or when ) that the reason there are so many AIDS cases in Africa is because the local doctors are so poorly trained and equipped that they cannot diagnose most of the diseases they come into contact with. So, when they come upon a patient who is dying and they cannot figure out why, the say he has AIDS. Has anyone else heard of this ? If so, what happens to all the money that is sent to Africa to prevent AIDS ?
Posted by gee vee at 6:22 PM on May 23
gee vee:
The UN has admitted that it fudged its AIDS infection statistics upward to hustle money. I think what you said about assuming AIDS for every dead body is part of the reason why there could be fudging.
Posted by Question Diversity at 10:27 PM on May 23
Exaggeration by the UN is notorious; the purpose of the UN is a socialist redistribution of wealth, from the taxpayers of developd nations to violent primitives elsewhere. It wasn’t only the UN, however. Advocacy groups like ACTUP also spent years begging for money by trying to claim HIV was “everybody’s problem”, despite the fact that the likelihood of John or Jane Q. Public catching it is vanishingly small.
The promiscuous demanding increased AIDS funding from taxpayers has always struck me much as if smokers were demanding public moneys for lung cancer treatment.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 11:43 PM on May 23
No one really knows how many HIV and AIDS cases there are in Africa because African countries do not use blood tests to diagnose AIDS.
African medics have a list of 10 signs and symptons. If a patient has 3 of these symptons, then the patient is classified as HIV positive.
Some of the signs and symptons are: 10 percent below normal body weight for their height ( like most actress, models, teens and young adults) A feeling of maliaise (flu symptons, bad hangover) Nausea, diarrhea ( sign of numerous diseases from mild flu to deadly cholera) Being fatigued much of the time ( another sign of many diseases also occurs in hot climates and with poor nutrition)
So basically, a 5ft 4 woman who weighs 107 pounds and has the flu or a hangover can be and is classified as HIV positive for the purpose of foreign aid which ultimately comes from the American and European taxpayers.
Posted by at 9:36 PM on May 28
You know, I keep reading how all these people in Africa are HIV positive, but they don’t seem to be dying. I am starting to lean towards Duesberg’s hypothesis that HIV is not the cause of AIDS.
Posted by Fritz Wilhelm at 7:49 PM on May 22
> The reason that AIDS manifestation is less lethal than earlier is because of the recombinant DNA in the Human Imuno-Virus. Various virus DNA recombine all the time. Flu viruses and others loose viability over time too unless given the right opportunity to evolve more virulent form.
Posted by Whiteplight at 6:48 PM on May 29
See what I mean. When the USA goes Brazil, the racist guerillas will be fighting AIDS HIV infected clowns. Victory is assured.
Posted by at 1:39 PM on June 1