Colm Craig
Equinox Staff
Dispelling the myths of HIV and AIDs was the topic of discussion in the Mabel Brown Room of the L.P. Young Student Center on Feb. 15, 2012.
Chris Jennings, Harvard graduate and published author of several texts in the field of HIV and AIDs studies, gave his presentation to a mix of students, teachers, and interested individuals. Jennings began the presentation with some background information about his research and publications, as well as adding in some personal experiences from his life during the initial outbreak of the AID’s virus.
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“Understanding and Preventing AIDS” was one of Jennings’ early publications, published in both a booklet and text book format combining for over 165,000 copies sold.
According to Jennings, these copies were adopted by several medical and educational institutions including Massachusetts General Hospital and the U.S Department of Health and Human Services. Jennings also has two other books that are due to be published soon, titled “HIV AIDS the Facts and the Fiction” and “HIV AIDS South Africa the Facts and the Fiction,” for which he collected over 3,000 medical articles during 20 years of contemplation.
Working in New York, which Jennings believes is the epicenter of the AIDS virus, put him on the front line of the virus’s spread. In regards to his involvement researching the AIDS virus, Jennings said, “Coming from my position in my life of being one of the first black people of my generation to graduate from Harvard, I wanted to work on things that are important, and I kind of recognized this was going to be an important issue from the beginning”. He believes that his research has disproved the widely believed myth that AIDS started in Africa and not the United States.
He was lead to this belief by his review of medical literature which focused on finding clusters that Jennings says, “The world’s first legitimate clusters of AIDS cases occurred in NYC beginning about 1979; namely, 13 patients with a pneumonia related to HIV infection, and four men with deadly Herpes infections.”
The third cluster was discovered in Los Angeles beginning 19 months later – four men with AIDS-related pneumonia,” he said. This evidence, combined with other information, is what Jennings claims disproves the theory that AIDS originated in South Africa.
Jennings also cited other evidence from the beginning of the epidemic to pinpoint the virus to an epicenter in New York, including a statistic that shows nearly 50 percent of the first thousand cases occurred in New York. This information was backed up by a study done in Denmark which showed that “the first four AIDS patients in Denmark all had sexual contact with either residents of the United States, or a man who had visited the United States.”
The second myth that Jennings says his research has shown to be false is the myth that AIDS originated from monkeys in Africa. This is a fallacy, according to Jennings, who used published scientific evidence, which showed that the blood samples from the African monkeys were contaminated in the laboratory by blood from monkeys in Boston. The immune deficiency found in the monkeys was further proven not to be the cause of the AIDS virus. This fallacy in particular was one that student, Nicole Amenta who was referred to the presentation by a teacher said, “was interesting to both hear it and hear it debunked in the same night.”
Jennings goal for his exhaustive research is simple, “I hope that my work will best help humans intervene in this major event in human history in a way that will make things better for everyone involved.” He further said that “To this day I believe we have a misallocation of resources” to those who are misdiagnosed in Africa and he thinks that the epidemic would be more effectively fought with an accurate allocation of AIDS medication. This concept in particular was new to some students.
Ashley Roberts, a student of KSC who was also referred by a teacher said, “I have never heard the idea that people in Africa are diagnosed without actually knowing that they definitely have HIV.”
By the end of the presentation, Jennings provided a plethora of data detailing the ins and outs of the AIDS epidemic which can be found in his books noted above and at the Center for Disease Control website.
In regards to prevention Jennings made one message loud and clear, “People should practice safe sex. Relatively speaking, HIV has a low prevalence rate in our society, but there are 20 other common diseases that are transmitted sexually.”
If one want to keep yourself a healthy and sexually responsible person, know the facts and make good use of the free protection measures and information provided by the Center for Health and Wellness.
Colm Craig can be contacted at cgraig1@ksc.mailcruiser.com.