Call Centre Romeos and Hindu Fundamentalists
If you are wondering about the link between the two, it is AIDS !
Apparently, Call Centre “Romeos” are one of the leading reasons for increasing AIDS in India.
And Hindu fundamentalists are indirectly helping this by opposing circumcision…which supposedly helps fight AIDS.
Please read on*…
A new AIDS threat is rising in India’s numerous call centers, where young staff are increasingly having unprotected sex with multiple partners in affairs developed during night shifts, a top AIDS expert has warned. [ link ]
…”You will see call center Romeos are a major high risk for HIV,” Solomon said.
However the AIDS expert, Dr Solomon did not present any figures and there is no data on how many call center employees are actually infected with HIV.
Dr Solomon then did a curious “detour” – and blamed “Hindu activists” for hampering India’s anti-AIDS fight. She mentioned a “recent government study to gauge the acceptance for circumcision…triggered a massive backlash by Hindu fundamentalists”
…and went on to say:
If you go out into the streets and say I will do this (circumcision) to reduce HIV, there will be a chaos…
Vaccines have failed. Microbicides have failed. This is one tool we have in hand but we can’t use it…
All this would have been fine except that Dr Solomon‘s case rests on a shaky foundation.
For one, the effectivenss of male circumcision as an anti-AIDS measure is still very controversial…
and although Dr Solomon boldly proclaims “Vaccines have failed. Microbicides have failed”, her profile suggests that she herself has not given up on vaccines and microbicides…
Might it have something to do with her various roles and assignments, I wonder?
Dr. Solomon is a member of the advisory board of International AIDS Vaccine Initiative-India…a permanent member on the Microbicides Committee of the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR)…
Dr. Solomon is the Indian Principal Investigator of several pioneering HIV research studies (including)…a Phase III study of 6% CS GEL, a candidate microbicide of CONRAD.
:-|.
To top off (no pun intended), here is an extract from a study that questions whether circumcision is an effective anti-AIDS measure:
From http://www.mgmbill.org/aids.htm:
The multi-country Mishra study concluded that circumcision may actually increase transmission of the AIDS virus, however, which is what many earlier studies found. The Brewer Study published in March, 2007, also concluded that circumcision in Kenya, Lesotho, and Tanzania increases the transmission of AIDS.
The United States has one of the highest rates of male circumcision and also one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the developed world, suggesting that circumcision is not helping. Conversely, Finland and Japan have some of the lowest rates of circumcision and also some of the lowest rates of HIV/AIDS. In Australia, the AFAO has now concluded that male circumcision has no role in the Australian HIV epidemic.
As you can see, the jury is still out on circumcision and AIDS…In the meanwhile of course, you have another stick to beat the Hindutva-wadis with!
Curiously no mention of the Vatican’s stance on condoms in the article:
The Catholic Church is telling people in countries stricken by Aids not to use condoms because they have tiny holes in them through which HIV can pass – potentially exposing thousands of people to risk.
The church is making the claims across four continents despite a widespread scientific consensus that condoms are impermeable to HIV.…The WHO has condemned the Vatican’s views, saying: “These incorrect statements about condoms and HIV are dangerous when we are facing a global pandemic which has already killed more than 20 million people, and currently affects at least 42 million.”
or of how a traditional Islamic theological response may hinder control of AIDS
“Islam and Muslims exacerbate the spread of AIDS,” said Professor Amina Wadud of Virginia Commonwealth University, taking to task the behavior of Muslim men who misuse Islam.
“A traditional Islamic theological response can never cure AIDS.” She cited Muslim men who compelled sex upon their wives even though the men were HIV-positive as a result of extramarital affairs.
but I forgot, the focus is on Hindu fundamentalists!
.
Related Posts:
HIV-positive patients *real* number may be 1/3rd of estimate…
AIDS’ first casualty in India: Truth
AIDS’ first casualty in India: Part 2
* P.S. Special thanks to Sh Krishen Kak for alerting me to this and for his links on the efficacy – or not – of circumcision as a method of controlling AIDS .
Note that all Muslim males and the majority of American Christian males are circumcised!
Male circumcision is far from having been accepted in the West as an anti-AIDS tool in its own countries, but is being touted internationally by the West-funded Dr Solomon as “the only tool” for India. Why?
Dr Solomon is “fine” with increasing sexual promiscuity in India because it a “recent liberal value”. Do her Western donors advocate increasing sexual promiscuity in their own countries? She seems to think abstinence is “conservative” and so “hampers” the only anti-AIDS tool she advocates for India – male circumcision! Why?
Moreover, female circumcision as an anti-AIDS measure, for which there appears to be some qualitatively comparable data, is being recommended neither by Dr Solomon (a woman) nor by any Western women themselves nor by Western agencies. Why?
It may be noted that “Solomon” is a name associated with religions that require or encourage male circumcision at birth. Therefore, almost all adult male circumcisions in India will necessarily be of Hindus, and never mind that circumcision “is likely to do more harm than good” (http://www.mgmbill.org/aids.htm).
It is easy to blame, as Dr Solomon does, “Hindu-majority India” for obstructing Western medico-pharma-commercial initiatives to save ourselves from a scourge that ravages the West, but “Hindus”, with long experience of rapacious Western colonialism, are certainly entitled to examine the teeth of Western gift horses.
When we learn there is an enormously lucrative and growing demand for human foreskins in Western markets with huge profits to be reaped by the West (http://www.norm-uk.org/where_do_foreskins_go.html), it is a reasonable inference that Western commercial interests and their agents in India see millions of uncircumcised Hindu males as as a harvest ripe for the cutting (pun intended).
AIDS threat for BPO Romeos
Dr.Suniti Solomon’s comments and observations made in an international forum, without any concrete data is uncalled for.
Being a mother of two kids and working in BPO since 5yrs, her statement comes as a rude shock and sounds atrocious. Dr suniti probably forgets that Doctors and Nurses also huddle together during nights, they are young, they are sexually active, are they not High Risk for HIV or may be since they are from the medical fraternity such data is never sought. Her irresponsible, attention drawing lewd comments highlighted by News agencies is probably the only reason why such an article gets published. Newspapers should refrain from publishing such ill conceived, premeditated statement funnelled more out of jaundiced notion, clearly evident from the comparison made between the salary of a Govt Doctor and a BPO employee fresh out of college.
Such news though hurts the sentiments it cannot dampen the fire in the 1.3 Million (growing by the day) youth of this country employed in BPO’s
KIRAN UMESH
Dear Sir,
Please understand that the bogey of the Aids syndrome did not succeed for the western medical companies the first time. They tried to sell it , Market it, bulldoze it, think of any form of pushing drugs to make profits! the western medical manufacturing units tried their level best, bad luck they lost the first time!
They are trying once again. Through a frustrated doctor, may be a reject by a Hindu in her youth, the Freud feeling, and is now trying to sell herself to get mileage by blaming the Hindus for the spread of Aids.
Regards,
vck