Simon Collery
- Location
- Arusha, Tanzania
- Birthday
- April 15
- Title
- Mr
- Bio
- An advocate for recognition of non-sexually transmitted HIV as an important contributor to serious epidemics in Africa.
MY RECENT POSTS
- Fairytale of New York; Old
Sluts on Junk and Africans
August 16, 2012 11:56AM - Circumcision Enthusiasts; Up
Have You Screwed, and Badly
August 14, 2012 11:47AM - Dancing Bears Demonstrate
Effectiveness of 'Evidence on
Demand' Policy
August 11, 2012 10:09AM - Sexual Behavior and HIV:
Retire the Paradigm or the
Adherents?
August 09, 2012 02:37PM - Treatment as Prevention; a
Purely Commercial Imperative
August 07, 2012 10:16AM
Simon Collery's Links
AUGUST 16, 2012 11:56AM
Fairytale of New York; Old Sluts on Junk and Africans
An article entitled "HIV prevention pill for heterosexuals at risk too" caught my eye because it reminded me of some email correspondence with people who worked in the US HIV/AIDS field in the 1980s. The short response is that most heterosexuals were not at risk, and most are still not/…
AUGUST 14, 2012 11:47AM
Circumcision Enthusiasts; Up Have You Screwed, and Badly
An article by Charlene N Muzyka and others looks at Kenyan newspaper 'analysis' of the limitations of mass male circumcision and the importance of sustained condom use in the online Daily Nation. That there is any analysis involved may be in question; are these newspaper reports merely paraphrasing/…
AUGUST 11, 2012 10:09AM
Dancing Bears Demonstrate Effectiveness of 'Evidence on Demand' Policy
Naturally, after spending tens of millions on the recent International Aids Conference in Washington DC, the HIV industry is buoyed up and ebullient. "The goal of an AIDS-free world...is now within sight", according to the Secretary of the US Health and Human Services. Equally naturally, that means/…
AUGUST 9, 2012 2:37PM
Sexual Behavior and HIV: Retire the Paradigm or the Adherents?
The 'behavioral paradigm', the view that HIV is almost always transmitted as a result of unsafe sexual behavior, has tended to give rise to questions such as 'what kind of behavior could people in high HIV prevalence contexts be engaging in?' rather than 'given that high levels of unsafe sexual/…
AUGUST 7, 2012 10:16AM
Treatment as Prevention; a Purely Commercial Imperative
Someone who has posted helpful and perceptive comments on this blog in the past has suggested that I am too much of a 'doubting Thomas' about 'treatment as prevention' as a strategy. So it's worth setting out some of the reasons for my skepticism. Treatment as prevention calls for putting anyon/…
JULY 26, 2012 10:25AM
HIV Drugs: Expert Opinion Trumps Randomized Controlled Trial
One of the biggest HIV industry funded junkets on the calendar, the International Aids/Antiviral Society's (IAS) AIDS 2012 Conference, is currently underway in Washington DC, the area with the highest HIV prevalence in the Western world. Conspicuously, despite an avowed commitment to fighting stigma/… Read full post »
JULY 21, 2012 1:14PM
PrEP is Win-Win for Big Pharma, Lose-Lose for Ordinary People
When a PrEP trial produces poor results, the reaction is often to
point the finger at the patient: they didn't take the drugs
regularly, 'adherence' was low, etc. The irony of this is that
people thought of as good candidates for PrEP are often those who
have not successfully modified their…
JULY 21, 2012 9:37AM
English Guardian Issues Press Release On Behalf of HIV Industry
It's not rocket science and
there's probably even a name for it, I just don't know what it is.
But when a company wants to charge a ridiculous price for their
product, they have to start with something astronomical. Suppose
the ridiculous price was $100, the seller needs to put the… Read full post »
JULY 8, 2012 7:19AM
Prejudice Can Determine Which Hypotheses Are Tested
The 'no sex for a month' idea was big news for the usual period that these fads can hold the media's attention. But now that it has been 'tested' by a mathematical model and found to be no better than other HIV prevention strategies, the press is not quite so/… Read full post »
JULY 2, 2012 11:08AM
Uganda's HIV Response: Hit Snooze Again
There have been several mentions of results from Uganda's 2011 Aids Indicator Survey over the past 6 or more months. However I can't find a copy of the report anywhere, not even the highlights or executive summary. But the news doesn't sound good. According to one of the newspaper mentions,… Read full post »
JUNE 26, 2012 2:51PM
If Anyone Can, the Vatican Can
An official at the Vatican is reported to have called for universal, free access to HIV drugs and greater investments into finding a cure. We are not told if they are going to put up some of the funding. But it's interesting that they object to the use of condoms/…
JUNE 25, 2012 3:02PM
If All you Have is Condoms, Every Problem Looks...Condom Shaped
It's an oft used metaphor about development that if all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Health and education related development are no exceptions. At different times and by different organizations, they have been dominated by the likes of birth control and related issues, wat… Read full post »
JUNE 23, 2012 5:30AM
Truvada Manufacturer Gilead Stops Funding to Critics
The Aids Healthcare Foundation (AHF) provides healthcare for HIV positive people and advocacy in the broader field of HIV health. In that capacity, the AHF has criticized the pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences on a number of issues, including drug pricing policies.
But in addition, AHF has ques/…
JUNE 22, 2012 3:57PM
Zimbabwe: Healthcare Can Wait, We Need Publicity
While the English Guardian debates about the need for contraception in developing countries, which is high, but probably not quite as high as those NGOs who stand to gain most from development funding for family planning claim it is, Zimbabwe is drawing attention to mass male circumcision. According… Read full post »
JUNE 19, 2012 6:57AM
HIV Policies and Prejudice: Divide and Rule Rules
Number 19 out of 25 'full democracies', according to the Economic Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index, is the US. A HIV positive American was recently given a 25 year prison sentence and lifetime registration as a sex offender because he had protected sex with another man. He was said to have/… Read full post »
JUNE 15, 2012 3:29PM
HIV: Still One Hump Short of a Sexually Transmitted Epidemic
When you plot a graph with UNAIDS' prevalence figures for HIV country epidemics using the figures available for 1990-2007, for most sub-Saharan African countries there is a pronounced hump where prevalence peaks, followed by a downward trend, presumably where death rates began to rise (it was far to/…
JUNE 13, 2012 3:38PM
Re-Colonization of Africa by Canadian NGOs?
How acceptable would this be as the first sentence in a blog or article: "Girls are so devalued in parts of Canada that men routinely rape them in the belief that, by assaulting a virgin, they will be cured of HIV/AIDS"? There are so many things wrong with such a/…
JUNE 10, 2012 2:27PM
Some Religious Leaders Support Non-Stigmatizing HIV Strategy
It's good to read that the Christian Science Monitor is taking an interest in an initiative from the International Network of Religious Leaders living with or Affected by HIV/AIDS (INERELA+). The initiative is called SAVE, which stands for: Safe sexual and skin-piercing behavior; Access to treatment/…
JUNE 9, 2012 12:40PM
Transactional Abstinence and the Objectification of Women
Similar to the HIV scare stories before the 2010 World Cup in South Africa (and numerous other sporting events), the mainstream media is full of the same in the run up to Euro 2010 and the London Olympics. According to the Washington Post, Ukraine has a booming prostitution industry, which… Read full post »
JUNE 8, 2012 3:52PM
Circumcision: A Few Billion to Spare for Africa
According to one source, Uganda plans to circumcise 4.2 million men by 2015 in the hope that this will reduce transmission of HIV from women to men (there is evidence that it increases transmission from men to women). At around $120 dollars per operation (probably a low estimate), that comes/…
JUNE 6, 2012 4:27PM
Compulsory HIV Testing Will Lead to Adversarial 'Public Health'
It may be tempting to believe that if everyone were to undergo a HIV test, this would make it easier to control the disease. And it could be a good start, there is a lot to be said for universal testing. But as Alvar Mwakyusa writes in Tanzania's Daily News,… Read full post »
JUNE 5, 2012 6:26AM
Sexual Distraction: Healthcare Associated HIV Transmission
Kiangiosekazi wa Nyoka gives a robust response to the
claim of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on HIV/AIDS that
"excessive overcrowding of remand prisoners at Segerea has
culminated in unimaginable free sex in that prison". They sound
almost envious. But as Kiangiosekazi wa Nyoka points out, hig/…
MAY 30, 2012 3:53AM
Information or Disinformation: in the Eyes of the Beholder?
I am in sympathy with the popular notion that people in developing countries need access to information, especially about health and other matters that profoundly affect their lives. But I wonder how people are to filter out the noise and only act on the information that really is to their/…
MAY 28, 2012 3:29PM
Neglected Tropical Diseases: Making Poverty Profitable?
I would like to make some clarifications to yesterday's blog after
receiving comments on Twitter. I am not opposed to the use of
vaccines, especially for diseases like polio. But there are too
many diseases to line up vaccines, one by one, for each remaining
disease. And all the time vaccine…
Kerry Lauerman
Joan Walsh
Salon.com