Big Media: Double Standards or Negligence?

I searched in vain for any mention of the risks of non-sexually transmitted HIV before the World Cup. But all the big news sources, CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, along with lots of newspapers and news sites, covered sexual transmission of HIV, exclusively. They warned people about unprotected sex and using condoms, etc, but none of them warned people that in South Africa, medical and cosmetic treatment can carry huge risks from unsterilized equipment and unsafe procedures.

This is particularly odd because I would put money on it that these same organizations warn their own employees about non-sexual dangers. I could be wrong, perhaps they don't warn their own employees. But many big organizations do, such as the UN, WHO and CDC. Even an MSF Kenya employee I talked to recently said she and her colleagues wouldn't use local medical or dental facilities (though, inexplicably, she didn't seem to think medical transmission posed much of a risk to people who lived in the country). So big media are either guilty of the double standard of warning their own employees of a risk that everyone in African countries face without warning African people; or they are guilty of negligence in not warning their employees about this serious risk.

Of course, they may have been advised by UNAIDS or the like that medical treatment does not pose much of a risk. What they mean by this is that they are currently admitting that in excess of 5% of HIV is transmitted by medical treatment. These thousands of people infected are so insignificant that UNAIDS deems it better to keep talking about sexual transmission and completely ignoring medical transmission because otherwise, people might not have confidence in their medical service providers. So, is there a risk or is there not?

If the risk is so small, only a few tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands of new cases every year, why not warn people about it? Because if the risk is small, they shouldn't be unduly worried about their medical service providers. But then, if the risk is small, why do UN agencies warn their own employees away from using medical services in African countries that are not approved by the UN? And while in excess of 5% of cases may not seem so significant to UNAIDS, that's 8 or 9 times higher than the contribution of medical treatment to HIV prevalence claimed for Kenya, which the same UNAIDS put at about 0.6%.

What is so wrong with saying that people face risk from both sexually transmitted and non-sexually transmitted HIV? Is it so hard to admit that when millions of needles and other sharp objects are stuck into people every day, some diseases may be accidentally transmitted? Because, if UNAIDS had the balls (or do I mean teeth?) to admit this obvious possibility, people living in African countries would be in a position to do something to protect themselves, perhaps even to lobby their governments to change things so that they don't face these dangers.

I think UNAIDS are right, if people found out that they or their children face an appreciable risk of being infected with HIV, they would think twice before having routine medical treatment. But what would UNAIDS prefer? That tens of thousands of preventable HIV infections continue to occur because they think that number is insignificant compared to people suspecting that their medical service providers are not very safe?

Either the danger of medical transmission is insignificant, and then it shouldn't be beyond the capability of UNAIDS and their chums to manage the fallout from telling the truth: that there is some danger. Or medical transmission is anything but insignificant, in which case UNAIDS and all other relevant agencies should lose no more time in warning people of the risks and in mitigating those risks so that people can return to their medical service providers with greater confidence.

I don't accept that it is better to keep people in the dark and allow some of them to become infected with HIV when this is completely avoidable. I don't accept that it is better not to tell people how to protect themselves or to try to cover up the danger on the grounds that people not using medical services is a bigger evil. African people are being treated like idiots, who don't know how to evaluate risks and to take measures to avoid them.

It looks as if people visiting the World Cup are being treated the same way, being told to avoid sex or to use a condom. Some of the more self righteous in the HIV industry like to say that the only way to be 100% sure of not contracting HIV is to abstain from sex. But this is not true. Abstaining from sex has not protected the thousands who have been infected non-sexually and the thousands more who will continue to be infected because UNAIDS, in their great collective wisdom, don't wish to inform people that there are also non-sexual risks that abstaining from sex and wearing a condom won't protect you from.

What is so difficult about telling the whole story, that HIV can be transmitted sexually and non-sexually? And if UNAIDS can't be trusted to do so, why is it so difficult for news agencies to do so? Do they really all care that little about HIV continuing to spread, unnecessarily? Or are they just so obsessed with sexual behaviour that only sexual risks are considered worth reporting?