We'll give you the right answers

From the Sun-Sentinel-

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.

"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.

I'm not going to debate the merits of Worobey's findings. They are above my education level.

When Haitian activists say they want an independent study done, what they really mean is a report stating the reverse of Dr. Worobey. Worobey is a University of Arizona professor, how isn't he independent now? Unless I'm mistaken, his findings are the result of his, and other people working with him, research. I've noted before where scientists have been funded by a group with their own agenda. Barring that in Worobey's case, Haitian groups attacks on the report come out of self-interest nothing else.

Linked to- Bullwinkle, Church and State, Jo, Stuck on Stupid,