Cancer and Food - Important Information
AFTER YEARS OF TELLING PEOPLE CHEMOTHERAPY IS THE ONLY WAY TO TRY
('TRY', BEING THE KEY WORD) TO ELIMINATE CANCER, JOHNS HOPKINS IS FINALLY
STARTING TO TELL YOU THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE WAY .
Cancer Update from Johns Hopkins:
1. Every person has cancer cells in the body. These cancer cells do not show up in the standard tests until they have multiplied to a few billion. When doctors tell cancer patients that there are no more cancer cells in their bodies after treatment, it just means the tests are unable to detect the cancer cells because they have not reached the detectable size.
2. Cancer cells occur between 6 to more than 10 times in a person's lifetime.
3. When the person's immune system is strong the cancer cells will be destroyed and prevented from multiplying and forming tumors.
4. When a person has cancer it indicates the person has multiple nutritional deficiencies. These could be due to genetic, environmental, food and lifestyle factors.
5. To overcome the multiple nutritional deficiencies, changing diet and including supplements will strengthen the immune system.
6. Chemotherapy involves poisoning the rapidly-growing cancer cells and also destroys rapidly-growing healthy cells in the bone marrow, gastrointestinal tract etc, and can cause organ damage, like liver, kidneys, heart, lungs etc.
7. Radiation while destroying cancer cells also burns, scars and damages healthy cells, tissues and organs.
8. Initial treatment with chemotherapy and radiation will often reduce tumor size.. However prolonged use of chemotherapy and radiation do not result in more tumor destruction.
9. When the body has too much toxic burden from chemotherapy and radiation the immune system is either compromised or destroyed, hence the person can succumb to various kinds of infections
And complications.
10. Chemotherapy and radiation can cause cancer cells to mutate and become resistant and difficult to destroy. Surgery can also cause cancer cells to spread to other sites.
11. An effective way to battle cancer is to starve the cancer cells by not feeding it with the foods it needs to multiply.
CANCER CELLS FEED ON:
a. Sugar is a cancer-feeder. By cutting off sugar it cuts off one important food supply to the cancer cells. Sugar substitutes like NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, etc are made with Aspartame and it is harmful. A better natural substitute would be Manuka honey or molasses but only in very small amounts. Table salt has a chemical added to make it white in color. Better alternative is Bragg's aminos or sea salt.
b. Milk causes the body to produce mucus, especially in the gastro-intestinal tract. Cancer feeds on mucus. By cutting off milk and substituting with unsweetened soy milk cancer cells are being starved.
c. Cancer cells thrive in an acid environment. A meat-based diet is acidic and it is best to eat fish, and a little chicken rather than beef or pork. Meat also contains livestock antibiotics, growth hormones and parasites, which are all harmful, especially to people with cancer.
d. A diet made of 80% fresh vegetables and juice, whole grains, seeds, nuts and a little fruits help put the body into an alkaline environment. About 20% can be from cooked food including beans. Fresh vegetable juices provide live enzymes that are easily absorbed and reach down to cellular levels within 15 minutes to nourish and enhance growth of healthy cells. To obtain live enzymes for building healthy cells try and drink fresh vegetable juice (most vegetables including bean sprouts) and eat some raw vegetables 2 or 3 times a day. Enzymes are destroyed at temperatures of 104 degrees F (40 degrees C).
e. Avoid coffee, tea, and chocolate, which have high caffeine. Green tea is a better alternative and has cancer fighting properties. Water-best to drink purified water, or filtered, to avoid known toxins and heavy metals in tap water. Distilled water is acidic, avoid it.
12. Meat protein is difficult to digest and requires a lot of digestive enzymes. Undigested meat remaining in the intestines becomes putrefied and leads to more toxic buildup.
13. Cancer cell walls have a tough protein covering. By refraining from or eating less meat it frees more enzymes to attack the protein walls of cancer cells and allows the body's killer cells to destroy the cancer cells.
14.. Some supplements build up the immune system (IP6, Flor-ssence, Essiac, anti-oxidants, vitamins, minerals, EFAs etc.) to enable the bodies own killer cells to destroy cancer cells. Other supplements like vitamin E are known to cause apoptosis, or programmed cell death, the body's normal method of disposing of damaged, unwanted, or unneeded cells.
15... Cancer is a disease of the mind, body, and spirit. A proactive and positive spirit will help the cancer warrior be a survivor. Anger, un-forgiveness and bitterness put the body into a stressful and acidic environment. Learn to have a loving and forgiving spirit. Learn to relax and enjoy life.
16. Cancer cells cannot thrive in an oxygenated environment. Exercising daily, and deep breathing help to get more oxygen down to the cellular level. Oxygen therapy is another means employed to destroy cancer cells.
1. No plastic containers in micro.
2. No water bottles in freezer.
3. No plastic wrap in microwave.
Johns Hopkins has recently sent this out in its newsletters. This information is being circulated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as well. Dioxin chemicals cause cancer, especially breast cancer. Dioxins are highly poisonous to the cells of our bodies. Don't freeze your plastic bottles with water in them as this releases dioxins from the plastic. Recently, Dr. Edward Fujimoto, Wellness Program Manager at Cast Le Hospital, was on a TV Program to explain this health hazard. He talked about dioxins and how bad they are for us. He said that we should not be heating our food in the microwave using plastic containers. This especially applies to foods that contain fat. He said that the combination of=2 0fat, high heat, and plastics releases dioxin into the food and
Ultimately into the cells of the body.. Instead, he recommends using glass, such as Corning Ware, Pyrex or ceramic containers for h eating food You get the same results, only without the dioxin. So such things as TV dinners, instant ramen and soups, etc., should be removed from the container and heated in something else. Paper isn't bad but you don't know what is in the paper. It's just safer to use tempered glass, Corning Ware, etc. He reminded us that a while ago some of the fast food restaurants moved away from the foam containers to paper. The dioxin problem is one of the reasons.
Also, he pointed out that plastic wrap, such as Saran, is just as dangerous when placed over foods to be cooked in the microwave. As the food is nuked, the high heat causes poisonous toxins to actually melt out of the plastic wrap and drip into the food. Cover food with a paper towel instead.
--
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Homophobia on the rise in the Muslim world
Homophobia on the rise in the Muslim world
As recent incidents in Iraq show, in many Islamic countries, gays are ostracized, persecuted, even murdered
Editor's note: This article originally appeared in Der Spiegel.
Juliane von Mittelstaedt and Daniel Steinvorth
Bearded men kidnapped him in the center of Baghdad, threw him into a dark hole, chained him up, urinated on him, and beat him with an iron pipe. But the worst moment for Hisham, 40, came on the fourth day of his ordeal, when the kidnappers called his family. He was terrified they would tell his mother that he was gay and that this was the reason they had kidnapped him. If they did, he would never be able to see his family again. The shame would be unbearable for them.
"Do what you want to me, but don't tell them," he screamed.
Instead of humiliating him in the eyes of his family, the kidnappers demanded a ransom of $50,000, a huge sum for the average Iraqi family. His parents had to go into debt and sell all of their son's possessions in order to raise the money required to secure his freedom. Shortly after they received the ransom, the kidnappers threw Hisham out of their car somewhere in the northern part of Baghdad. They had decided not to shoot him. But they sent him on his way with a warning: "This is your last chance. If we ever see you again, we'll kill you."
That was four months ago. Hisham has since moved to Lebanon. He told his family that he had decided to flee the violence and terror in Baghdad and that he had found work in Beirut. Needless to say, he didn't disclose the fact that he is unable to live in Iraq because of the death squads who are out hunting for "effeminate-looking" men.
In Baghdad a new series of murders began early this year, perpetrated against men suspected of being gay. Often they are raped, their genitals cut off, and their anuses sealed with glue. Their bodies are left at landfills or dumped in the streets. The nonprofit organization Human Rights Watch, which has documented many of these crimes, has spoken of a systematic campaign of violence involving hundreds of murders.
Restoring "religious morals"
A video clip showing men dancing with each other at a party in Baghdad in the summer of 2008 is thought to have triggered this string of kidnappings, rapes and murders. Thousands of people have seen it on the Internet and on their cellphones. Islamic religious leaders began ranting about the growing presence of a "third sex," which American soldiers were said to have brought in with them. The followers of radical Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr, in particular, felt the need to take action aimed at restoring "religious morals."
In their stronghold, the part of Baghdad known as Sadr City, black-clad militiamen patrol the streets, on the lookout for anyone whose "unmanly appearance" or behavior would make it possible to identify them as being homosexual. Long hair, tight-fitting T-shirts and trousers, or a certain way of walking were often a death sentence for the persons in question. But it's not just the Mahdi army who has been hunting down and killing gay men. Other groups such as Sunni militias close to al-Qaida and the Iraqi security services are also known to be involved.
Homosexuals in Iraq may be faced with an exceptionally dangerous situation, but they are ostracized almost everywhere in the Muslim world. Gay rights organizations estimate that more than 100,000 gay men and women are being discriminated against and threatened in Muslim countries. Thousands of them commit suicide, end up in prison, or go into hiding.
Egypt starts to clamp down
More than 30 Islamic countries have laws on the books that make homosexuality a criminal offense. In most cases punishment ranges from floggings to life imprisonment. In Mauritania, Bangladesh, Yemen, parts of Nigeria and Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, convicted homosexuals can also be sentenced to death.
In those Muslim countries where homosexuality is not against the law, gay men and women are nonetheless persecuted, arrested and in some cases murdered. Although long known for its open gay scene, Egypt has recently started to clamp down hard. The lives of homosexuals are monitored by a kind of vice squad that taps telephones and recruits informants. As soon as the police have accumulated the kind of evidence they need, they charge their victims with "debauchery."
In Malaysia homosexuality has been used as a political weapon. In 2000 opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was sentenced to nine years in prison for allegedly committing "sodomy" with his wife's chauffeur as well as with a former speechwriter. In 2004 the conviction was overturned on appeal, and he was acquitted. In the summer of 2008, charges were filed against him in a similar case when a male aide accused him of sodomy. The case is still ongoing.
For a while Anwar Ibrahim was the favorite of former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and was being groomed to succeed him in that office until they had a falling out in 1998. Ten years and some prison time later, on August 28, 2008, Anwar managed to be sworn in again as a member of the Malaysian Parliament. But that's as far as he has got with his political comeback.
Even in liberal Lebanon homosexuals run the risk of being sentenced to a year in prison. On the other hand, Beirut has the only gay and lesbian organization in the Arab world (Helem, which means "dream" in Arabic). There are posters on the walls of the Helem office in downtown Beirut providing information on AIDS and tips on how to deal with homophobia. The existence of Helem is being tolerated for the time being, but the Interior Ministry has yet to grant it an official permit. "And it's hard to imagine that we ever will be given one," says Georges Azzi, the organization's managing director.
Islamists are the dominant cultural force
In Istanbul there is a free gay scene, Christopher Street Day is celebrated, and even religious Muslims are among the fans of transsexual pop diva Bülent Ersoy and the late gay singer Zeki Müren. But outside the world of show business it is considered both a disgrace and an illness to be a götveren, or "queen." In the Turkish army, homosexuality is cause for failing a medical test. To identify anyone trying to use homosexuality as an excuse to get out of military service, army doctors ask to see photos or videos showing the recruits engaging in sex with a man. And they have to be in the "passive" role. In Turkey being in the active role is considered manly enough not to be proof of homosexuality.
It looks as if a wave of homophobia has swept over the Islamic world, a place that was once widely known for its open-mindedness, where homoerotic literature was written and widely read, where gender roles were not so narrowly defined, and, as in the days of ancient Greece, where men often sought the companionship of youths.
Islamists are now a dominant cultural force in many of these countries. They include figures such as popular Egyptian television preacher Yussuf al-Qaradawi, who demonizes gays as perverse. Four years ago the Shiite grand ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa saying that gays are to be murdered in the most brutal way possible. These religious opinion leaders base their hatred for gays on the story of Lot in the Koran: "Do ye commit lewdness such as no people in creation [ever] committed before you? For ye practice your lusts on men in preference to women: ye are indeed a people transgressing beyond bounds." Lot's people suffered the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for their sins. The prophet Mohammed has a number of dicta in which he condemns these acts by Lot's people, and in one of them he even goes as far as to call for punishment by death.
European prudery exported to the colonies
The story of Lot and related verses in the Koran were not interpreted as unambiguous references to homosexual sex until the 20th century, says Everett Rowson, professor of Islamic studies at New York University. This reinterpretation was the result of Western influences -- its source was the prudery of European colonialists who introduced their conception of sexual morality to the newly conquered countries.
The fact of the matter is that half of the laws across the world that prohibit homosexuality today are derived from a single law that the British enacted in India in 1860. "Many attitudes with regard to sexual morality that are thought to be identical to Islam owe a lot more to Queen Victoria than to the Koran," Rowson says.
More than anything, it is the politicization of Islam that has led to the persecution of gays today. Sexual morals are no longer a private matter. They are regulated and instrumentalized by governments.
"Regimes want to control the private lives of citizens"
"The most repressive are secular regimes such as those in Egypt or Morocco, which are under pressure from Islamists and so try to outdo them with regard to morals," says Scott Long of Human Rights Watch. "In addition, the persecution of homosexuals shows that a regime has control over the private lives of its citizens -- a sign of power and authority." For several years now, a sense of "moral panic" has been systematically fomented in many Muslim countries.
Iran is a case in point, where homosexuals have been persecuted on a more or less regular basis since the Islamic revolution. Since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been in office, there has definitely been an increase in this persecution despite the fact that Ahmadinejad never grows tired of emphasizing that there are no homosexuals in his country.
The mere suspicion that someone may have committed "unnatural acts" is enough for that person to be sentenced to a flogging in Iran. If caught more than once, the person in question can be sentenced to death. According to official statistics, 148 homosexuals have been given a death sentence and executed thus far. The true figure is doubtless much larger than this. The last case of this kind to attract public attention was that of 21-year-old Makwan Moludsade, who was hanged in December 2007. He was accused of having raped three boys several years earlier. Homosexuals are almost always charged with other crimes such as rape, fraud or robbery in order to better justify their execution.
Click Here Click here...
"If I had stayed, they would have killed me"
As a result of this situation, thousands of gays and lesbians have fled Iran. For most of them the first port of call is Turkey. "I had no choice but to flee," says Ali, a 32-year-old physician. "If I had stayed, they would have killed me."
Ali was careful. He rarely went to parties, he used different Internet cafes for online chat sessions, and he didn't let anyone in on his secret, not even the members of his family. Everything went well until one day his friend's father caught them kissing. Two days later Ali lost his job at the hospital and then he was hit by a car, in what seemed to be a deliberate attack. Shortly after that he received a telephone call telling him: "We want to see you hang."
What he hadn't known was that his friend's father was a high-ranking member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Ali went to the bank, withdrew his savings, and took a train to Turkey, where he applied for asylum. Since then he has lived in a tiny apartment in Kayseri, Central Anatolia, one of 35 gay Iranian exiles in that city.
Arsham Parsi, 29, from Shiraz, fled Iran four years ago. A slight man with a fluffy beard and glasses, he was one of the most wanted men in Iran for several years after creating the country's first gay network in 2001. Its members communicated with each other only by e-mail, and very few people knew his real name. But in the end his identity was revealed. Parsi managed to get away, but it was a close call. He got a visa for Canada, where he founded the Iranian Queer Organization, which now has 6,000 members in Iran. They include numerous transsexuals or persons who consider themselves to be transsexuals. Parsi estimates that "nearly half of all sex-change operations are requested by homosexuals."
Sex-change operations booming in Iran
The persecution of gays has led to a boom in the demand for sex-change operations in Iran. More operations of this kind are carried out in the Islamic Republic than anywhere else in the world apart from Thailand. These procedures were approved by Ayatollah Khomeini himself in 1983. Khomeini defined transsexuality as a disease that can be healed by means of an operation. Since then thousands of people have requested this kind of treatment, and the Iranian government even covers part of the costs.
"Family members and physicians urge homosexuals to have operations to normalize their sexual orientation," Parsi says. This way it was possible for a high-ranking Shiite religious scholar to finance his secretary's physical transformation into a woman and then to marry him.
The archconservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the only Arab country where sharia law is the sole legal code, under which homosexuals are flogged and executed. "Homosexuals are freer here than they are in Iran," says Afdhere Jama, who traveled through the Islamic world for seven years doing research for his book "Illegal Citizens."
Gay men and women have a surprising amount of space in Saudi society. Newspapers print stories about lesbian sex in school lavatories, while it is an open secret that certain shopping centers, restaurants and bars in Jeddah and Riyadh are gay meeting points.
"There are numerous Saudi men who have sexual relationships with youths before they are married or when their wives are pregnant," Jama says. In these cases, having sex with another male is often the only way of having sex at all. Extramarital affairs with women are nearly impossible. "In the West the men in question would be considered gay, but in countries like Saudi Arabia it is harder to categorize them," Jama notes. Most Muslims have trouble understanding the Western concept of "gay identity." In their countries there is no such thing as a gay lifestyle or a gay movement.
Cultural and political factors
Daayiee Abdullah, 55, is an imam. He wears a prayer cap, has a beard -- and is gay. He is one of only two imams in the world who are openly gay. He voluntarily chose to follow the path of Islam. Raised as a Baptist in Detroit, he made friends with Chinese Muslims while studying in Beijing and then converted to Islam. "They told me it would be no problem for me as a gay man to be a good Muslim."
Imam Abdullah and many others along with him have a somewhat different interpretation of the story of Lot. According to them, those whom God condemned were not homosexuals but rapists and robbers. It is not homosexuality that the Koran prohibits but rather rape. "The rejection of gays is a result of cultural and political factors," he says. "Just like honor killings and arranged marriages. They're not in the Koran either."
Abdullah lives in Washington, the U.S. capital, and says prayers at the funerals of gay persons, particularly if they died of AIDS, something no other imam is willing to do. He officiates at same-sex marriages and, for the past 11 years, has provided religious advice in an online forum titled "Muslim Gay Men."
He regularly receives death threats but now laughs them off, saying: "How can two loving men pose a threat to the foundations God has laid?"
More:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/09/18/gay_muslim/index1.html
--
As recent incidents in Iraq show, in many Islamic countries, gays are ostracized, persecuted, even murdered
Editor's note: This article originally appeared in Der Spiegel.
Juliane von Mittelstaedt and Daniel Steinvorth
Bearded men kidnapped him in the center of Baghdad, threw him into a dark hole, chained him up, urinated on him, and beat him with an iron pipe. But the worst moment for Hisham, 40, came on the fourth day of his ordeal, when the kidnappers called his family. He was terrified they would tell his mother that he was gay and that this was the reason they had kidnapped him. If they did, he would never be able to see his family again. The shame would be unbearable for them.
"Do what you want to me, but don't tell them," he screamed.
Instead of humiliating him in the eyes of his family, the kidnappers demanded a ransom of $50,000, a huge sum for the average Iraqi family. His parents had to go into debt and sell all of their son's possessions in order to raise the money required to secure his freedom. Shortly after they received the ransom, the kidnappers threw Hisham out of their car somewhere in the northern part of Baghdad. They had decided not to shoot him. But they sent him on his way with a warning: "This is your last chance. If we ever see you again, we'll kill you."
That was four months ago. Hisham has since moved to Lebanon. He told his family that he had decided to flee the violence and terror in Baghdad and that he had found work in Beirut. Needless to say, he didn't disclose the fact that he is unable to live in Iraq because of the death squads who are out hunting for "effeminate-looking" men.
In Baghdad a new series of murders began early this year, perpetrated against men suspected of being gay. Often they are raped, their genitals cut off, and their anuses sealed with glue. Their bodies are left at landfills or dumped in the streets. The nonprofit organization Human Rights Watch, which has documented many of these crimes, has spoken of a systematic campaign of violence involving hundreds of murders.
Restoring "religious morals"
A video clip showing men dancing with each other at a party in Baghdad in the summer of 2008 is thought to have triggered this string of kidnappings, rapes and murders. Thousands of people have seen it on the Internet and on their cellphones. Islamic religious leaders began ranting about the growing presence of a "third sex," which American soldiers were said to have brought in with them. The followers of radical Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr, in particular, felt the need to take action aimed at restoring "religious morals."
In their stronghold, the part of Baghdad known as Sadr City, black-clad militiamen patrol the streets, on the lookout for anyone whose "unmanly appearance" or behavior would make it possible to identify them as being homosexual. Long hair, tight-fitting T-shirts and trousers, or a certain way of walking were often a death sentence for the persons in question. But it's not just the Mahdi army who has been hunting down and killing gay men. Other groups such as Sunni militias close to al-Qaida and the Iraqi security services are also known to be involved.
Homosexuals in Iraq may be faced with an exceptionally dangerous situation, but they are ostracized almost everywhere in the Muslim world. Gay rights organizations estimate that more than 100,000 gay men and women are being discriminated against and threatened in Muslim countries. Thousands of them commit suicide, end up in prison, or go into hiding.
Egypt starts to clamp down
More than 30 Islamic countries have laws on the books that make homosexuality a criminal offense. In most cases punishment ranges from floggings to life imprisonment. In Mauritania, Bangladesh, Yemen, parts of Nigeria and Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, convicted homosexuals can also be sentenced to death.
In those Muslim countries where homosexuality is not against the law, gay men and women are nonetheless persecuted, arrested and in some cases murdered. Although long known for its open gay scene, Egypt has recently started to clamp down hard. The lives of homosexuals are monitored by a kind of vice squad that taps telephones and recruits informants. As soon as the police have accumulated the kind of evidence they need, they charge their victims with "debauchery."
In Malaysia homosexuality has been used as a political weapon. In 2000 opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was sentenced to nine years in prison for allegedly committing "sodomy" with his wife's chauffeur as well as with a former speechwriter. In 2004 the conviction was overturned on appeal, and he was acquitted. In the summer of 2008, charges were filed against him in a similar case when a male aide accused him of sodomy. The case is still ongoing.
For a while Anwar Ibrahim was the favorite of former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and was being groomed to succeed him in that office until they had a falling out in 1998. Ten years and some prison time later, on August 28, 2008, Anwar managed to be sworn in again as a member of the Malaysian Parliament. But that's as far as he has got with his political comeback.
Even in liberal Lebanon homosexuals run the risk of being sentenced to a year in prison. On the other hand, Beirut has the only gay and lesbian organization in the Arab world (Helem, which means "dream" in Arabic). There are posters on the walls of the Helem office in downtown Beirut providing information on AIDS and tips on how to deal with homophobia. The existence of Helem is being tolerated for the time being, but the Interior Ministry has yet to grant it an official permit. "And it's hard to imagine that we ever will be given one," says Georges Azzi, the organization's managing director.
Islamists are the dominant cultural force
In Istanbul there is a free gay scene, Christopher Street Day is celebrated, and even religious Muslims are among the fans of transsexual pop diva Bülent Ersoy and the late gay singer Zeki Müren. But outside the world of show business it is considered both a disgrace and an illness to be a götveren, or "queen." In the Turkish army, homosexuality is cause for failing a medical test. To identify anyone trying to use homosexuality as an excuse to get out of military service, army doctors ask to see photos or videos showing the recruits engaging in sex with a man. And they have to be in the "passive" role. In Turkey being in the active role is considered manly enough not to be proof of homosexuality.
It looks as if a wave of homophobia has swept over the Islamic world, a place that was once widely known for its open-mindedness, where homoerotic literature was written and widely read, where gender roles were not so narrowly defined, and, as in the days of ancient Greece, where men often sought the companionship of youths.
Islamists are now a dominant cultural force in many of these countries. They include figures such as popular Egyptian television preacher Yussuf al-Qaradawi, who demonizes gays as perverse. Four years ago the Shiite grand ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa saying that gays are to be murdered in the most brutal way possible. These religious opinion leaders base their hatred for gays on the story of Lot in the Koran: "Do ye commit lewdness such as no people in creation [ever] committed before you? For ye practice your lusts on men in preference to women: ye are indeed a people transgressing beyond bounds." Lot's people suffered the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for their sins. The prophet Mohammed has a number of dicta in which he condemns these acts by Lot's people, and in one of them he even goes as far as to call for punishment by death.
European prudery exported to the colonies
The story of Lot and related verses in the Koran were not interpreted as unambiguous references to homosexual sex until the 20th century, says Everett Rowson, professor of Islamic studies at New York University. This reinterpretation was the result of Western influences -- its source was the prudery of European colonialists who introduced their conception of sexual morality to the newly conquered countries.
The fact of the matter is that half of the laws across the world that prohibit homosexuality today are derived from a single law that the British enacted in India in 1860. "Many attitudes with regard to sexual morality that are thought to be identical to Islam owe a lot more to Queen Victoria than to the Koran," Rowson says.
More than anything, it is the politicization of Islam that has led to the persecution of gays today. Sexual morals are no longer a private matter. They are regulated and instrumentalized by governments.
"Regimes want to control the private lives of citizens"
"The most repressive are secular regimes such as those in Egypt or Morocco, which are under pressure from Islamists and so try to outdo them with regard to morals," says Scott Long of Human Rights Watch. "In addition, the persecution of homosexuals shows that a regime has control over the private lives of its citizens -- a sign of power and authority." For several years now, a sense of "moral panic" has been systematically fomented in many Muslim countries.
Iran is a case in point, where homosexuals have been persecuted on a more or less regular basis since the Islamic revolution. Since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been in office, there has definitely been an increase in this persecution despite the fact that Ahmadinejad never grows tired of emphasizing that there are no homosexuals in his country.
The mere suspicion that someone may have committed "unnatural acts" is enough for that person to be sentenced to a flogging in Iran. If caught more than once, the person in question can be sentenced to death. According to official statistics, 148 homosexuals have been given a death sentence and executed thus far. The true figure is doubtless much larger than this. The last case of this kind to attract public attention was that of 21-year-old Makwan Moludsade, who was hanged in December 2007. He was accused of having raped three boys several years earlier. Homosexuals are almost always charged with other crimes such as rape, fraud or robbery in order to better justify their execution.
Click Here Click here...
"If I had stayed, they would have killed me"
As a result of this situation, thousands of gays and lesbians have fled Iran. For most of them the first port of call is Turkey. "I had no choice but to flee," says Ali, a 32-year-old physician. "If I had stayed, they would have killed me."
Ali was careful. He rarely went to parties, he used different Internet cafes for online chat sessions, and he didn't let anyone in on his secret, not even the members of his family. Everything went well until one day his friend's father caught them kissing. Two days later Ali lost his job at the hospital and then he was hit by a car, in what seemed to be a deliberate attack. Shortly after that he received a telephone call telling him: "We want to see you hang."
What he hadn't known was that his friend's father was a high-ranking member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Ali went to the bank, withdrew his savings, and took a train to Turkey, where he applied for asylum. Since then he has lived in a tiny apartment in Kayseri, Central Anatolia, one of 35 gay Iranian exiles in that city.
Arsham Parsi, 29, from Shiraz, fled Iran four years ago. A slight man with a fluffy beard and glasses, he was one of the most wanted men in Iran for several years after creating the country's first gay network in 2001. Its members communicated with each other only by e-mail, and very few people knew his real name. But in the end his identity was revealed. Parsi managed to get away, but it was a close call. He got a visa for Canada, where he founded the Iranian Queer Organization, which now has 6,000 members in Iran. They include numerous transsexuals or persons who consider themselves to be transsexuals. Parsi estimates that "nearly half of all sex-change operations are requested by homosexuals."
Sex-change operations booming in Iran
The persecution of gays has led to a boom in the demand for sex-change operations in Iran. More operations of this kind are carried out in the Islamic Republic than anywhere else in the world apart from Thailand. These procedures were approved by Ayatollah Khomeini himself in 1983. Khomeini defined transsexuality as a disease that can be healed by means of an operation. Since then thousands of people have requested this kind of treatment, and the Iranian government even covers part of the costs.
"Family members and physicians urge homosexuals to have operations to normalize their sexual orientation," Parsi says. This way it was possible for a high-ranking Shiite religious scholar to finance his secretary's physical transformation into a woman and then to marry him.
The archconservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the only Arab country where sharia law is the sole legal code, under which homosexuals are flogged and executed. "Homosexuals are freer here than they are in Iran," says Afdhere Jama, who traveled through the Islamic world for seven years doing research for his book "Illegal Citizens."
Gay men and women have a surprising amount of space in Saudi society. Newspapers print stories about lesbian sex in school lavatories, while it is an open secret that certain shopping centers, restaurants and bars in Jeddah and Riyadh are gay meeting points.
"There are numerous Saudi men who have sexual relationships with youths before they are married or when their wives are pregnant," Jama says. In these cases, having sex with another male is often the only way of having sex at all. Extramarital affairs with women are nearly impossible. "In the West the men in question would be considered gay, but in countries like Saudi Arabia it is harder to categorize them," Jama notes. Most Muslims have trouble understanding the Western concept of "gay identity." In their countries there is no such thing as a gay lifestyle or a gay movement.
Cultural and political factors
Daayiee Abdullah, 55, is an imam. He wears a prayer cap, has a beard -- and is gay. He is one of only two imams in the world who are openly gay. He voluntarily chose to follow the path of Islam. Raised as a Baptist in Detroit, he made friends with Chinese Muslims while studying in Beijing and then converted to Islam. "They told me it would be no problem for me as a gay man to be a good Muslim."
Imam Abdullah and many others along with him have a somewhat different interpretation of the story of Lot. According to them, those whom God condemned were not homosexuals but rapists and robbers. It is not homosexuality that the Koran prohibits but rather rape. "The rejection of gays is a result of cultural and political factors," he says. "Just like honor killings and arranged marriages. They're not in the Koran either."
Abdullah lives in Washington, the U.S. capital, and says prayers at the funerals of gay persons, particularly if they died of AIDS, something no other imam is willing to do. He officiates at same-sex marriages and, for the past 11 years, has provided religious advice in an online forum titled "Muslim Gay Men."
He regularly receives death threats but now laughs them off, saying: "How can two loving men pose a threat to the foundations God has laid?"
More:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/09/18/gay_muslim/index1.html
--
"Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Don't ever slip up ...
"Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Don't ever slip up ...
http://hamptonroads.com/2009/09/dont-ask-dont-tell-dont-ever-slip
http://tinyurl.com/ycnq4r3
The Virginian-Pilot
Norfolk
Sunday, September 27, 2009
"Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Don't ever slip up ...
NORFOLK -- Since 1993, a generation of gay sailors, Marines, soldiers and airmen has learned to survive on the military's margins.
That year, President Bill Clinton prohibited the military from asking about individuals' sexual orientation - even as Congress mandated the discharge of anyone engaging in homosexual acts or identifying themselves as gay.
About 13,000 gays and lesbians have been discharged since the changes took place. Still, a far greater number of gay Americans are serving, or have served, in silence.
They walk a fine line, constantly recalculating how much of their personal lives to share with co-workers, learning which doctors and chaplains they can trust, and in the safest cases, finding bosses who subtly make clear that actions, not adjectives, are the best measure of a good sailor.
The Virginian-Pilot interviewed three gay members of the military about what it's like to serve without disclosing a key part of their identity.
Because naming them could jeopardize their careers, the newspaper agreed not to use their real names or include details that would allow them to be recognized.
Here are their stories.
Phoebe, who works on communications equipment on a Norfolk-based surface ship, is partway through her first hitch in the Navy.
Outspoken but not defensive, Phoebe said she didn't know she was gay when she enlisted. But after a few relationships with men, one of which resulted, unintentionally, in pregnancy, she realized she was a lesbian.
She laughs now about breaking two pieces of news to her surprised parents: First, she was pregnant. Second, she was gay.
It hasn't been easy, but she's managed to balance motherhood and the military. Her parents care for her child when her ship deploys.
She's a no-nonsense sailor, promoted three times in four years, and she doesn't think work and personal lives should mix too much. The bridge of a warship, she said, isn't an appropriate place to talk about intimate relationships - gay or straight.
But when you live together, and you're deployed together and you sleep in a small compartment, she said, it's hard to keep the most basic truth about yourself private.
She abides by the rules. But curse words fly when she talks about the current policy.
"I think it's bull that I could get kicked out for something that has nothing to do with the military. I can go die for my country, and I can't be gay?" she said, before letting loose with a choice expletive.
The "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy prohibits the military from inquiring about individuals' sexual tendencies and pursuing rumors of homosexual conduct. Individuals cannot talk about their sexual orientation; nor can they be harassed over perceived sexual preferences.
But federal law offers no protection if credible evidence of gay behavior comes to a commanding officer's attention. The law clearly states that gay individuals create "an unacceptable risk" to "morale, good order and discipline and unit cohesion."
Phoebe posed a theoretical question to those who think gay men and women have no place in the military. "What's worse?" she asked. "Having a terrorist attack? Or having a homo stop it?"
Although she gets tired of always having to edit her speech around co-workers, Phoebe doesn't feel particularly vulnerable.
She's confident that the commanding officer of her ship knows she's gay.
The C.O. asked her once what she thought of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Her response was not suitable for publication.
Phoebe believes that most people in her division know her truth, but she's careful not to provide any proof.
"Everyone on my ship assumes, but I've never come out and said anything to anyone I didn't trust," she said.
She described an informal network of gay sailors on her ship.
Phoebe said she knows them all, and when asked roughly how many there are, proceeded to count them out on her fingers. About a dozen, she concluded, including officers, chiefs and enlisted sailors of both sexes.
With rare exceptions, gay sailors stationed on the same ship don't get involved in romantic relationships, she said. But it's nice to have friends who are dealing with the same issues.
When the ship pulled into a foreign port, Phoebe said, the gay sailors would often head off together to a hole-in-the-wall gay bar.
She takes some solace that under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," superiors are not supposed to inquire about her sexuality. So as long as she's careful, she isn't too worried about being investigated.
"I could hang out with the gayest guy in the world, wearing a dress, and it wouldn't matter," Phoebe said. "Unless there's proof, there's nothing they can do."
Phoebe said concerns about gay sailors hitting on straight shipmates are overblown: "That's why we have shower curtains! There are bathroom stalls, and you have a curtain on your rack."
She also mentioned that there's plenty of illicit interaction between men and women on her ship, even though Navy policy forbids sex while a boat is under way. On a recent deployment, she said, the captain put 10 people on the ship on restriction for having sex. One case involved a tryst between an officer and an enlisted sailor, she said - a type of fraternization verboten at sea or ashore.
Although angered by what she perceives as official discrimination against gays, Phoebe said no one has been rude or discriminatory toward her.
If Congress changed the law to allow gays to serve openly, "it wouldn't change much for me," she said.
Then she conceded that it would be a weight off her shoulders: "I could walk down the road with my girlfriend's hand in mine and not worry about someone from my ship seeing me."
Richard enlisted almost 20 years ago and, until recently, didn't give much thought to what it would be like to be a gay military man.
Then, a few years ago, he accepted a truth he'd fought to bury for years: He is gay.
The acknowledgment came as a great relief, even at home. He remains married to a woman he met in the military. They have school-age children.
In some ways, their marriage is stronger now. He and his wife are no longer lovers, but they're still best friends and partners committed to raising their kids in a loving home.
Because there's so much at stake - his job, his family's health insurance, his retirement - he worries about someone discovering the truth before he's eligible to retire in a few years.
Trained in multiple foreign languages for a job that requires travel and a security clearance, he knows his skills would fetch a handsome salary in the civilian world. He would happily stay in uniform if the law changed. If it doesn't, he's prepared to retire as soon as he can.
In a recent interview with Richard and his wife in the living room of their two-story house, in a typical Hampton Roads subdivision, the couple talked about their lives.
His wife finds support on the Internet from other women married to gay men. It's not as rare as you might think, they say.
Richard has turned to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network to learn which actions do or don't violate the law.
For example, he explains, it's OK for a soldier to go to a gay bar - but it's not OK to dance with another man. It's OK to watch a movie with a same-sex partner - but not to kiss or hold that partner's hand. It's fine to march in a gay pride parade- but not to hold a placard identifying yourself as a lesbian sailor.
Having to stay attuned to those specific legalities has worn Richard down.
He takes seriously the American ideals of justice and equality. That his own government denies him both, he said, takes its toll.
"Is our military representative of the freedoms of our nation?" he asked rhetorically. "If I can't go to the movies and hold somebody's hand, am I free?"
Having to lie about tiny things gets tiresome, and eventually, Richard said, leads to a bigger problem:
"It's important people can be true to themselves. If you can't be true to yourselves, you can't be true to the people around you."
The current policy encourages lying, he said - and even small lies about where you spent the weekend or what you watched on TV turn into a bigger breach of trust.
"When, by law, you are compelling people to lie about their personal lives, you're driving a wedge between people and their unit," he said.
He is confident the military would accept the change without much trouble.
"Saying our military can't adapt to those challenges is really selling our military short," he said.
Like Richard, Frank didn't accept being gay until after he'd married and become a father.
He enlisted to get away from home.
"I was running away from home, and it was the best way to keep a roof over my head, food in my stomach, and a little bit of change in my pocket," he said during an interview at a Virginia Beach Starbucks.
When he joined up, a few years before "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was adopted, enlistment forms asked if recruits had homosexual tendencies or experiences - and answering yes meant you couldn't serve.
Frank lied.
He didn't want to be gay. So he repressed it. He took his marriage vows seriously and stayed faithful to his wife, whom he met on duty.
His control lasted 10 years, until Frank realized he couldn't deny reality. The couple divorced. Their youngest child wasn't yet in school; the older one was in grade school.
Frank and his kids stayed together, and eventually his partner, Dave, joined them.
The arrangement was tested when Frank prepared to deploy a few years ago and Dave became the kids' guardian - taking them shopping, shuttling them to dentist and doctor appointments, overseeing their homework.
"It was rough. It was a little scary," Frank said. He knew his partner would be a good father figure, but he worried that the pressure of parenting might be too much for him.
It almost was. The couple came close to breaking up while Frank was gone, although Dave promised to take care of the kids regardless. They got through the rough patch and are still together.
Frank described years of nagging worries that his secret would be revealed. "I constantly felt like I had to watch what I did," he said.
He knows five gay sailors who were discharged or chose to leave the Navy because bearing their secret was too hard.
Occasionally, over drinks, away from the office, a fellow sailor would broach the topic.
"They'll start off saying, 'You don't have to answer me and I'm not supposed to ask, but I want to let you know that I don't care. I'm just curious,' " Frank recalled.
If he trusted the person, Frank would acknowledge being gay. But he didn't feel comfortable bringing his partner along to the command Christmas party - even though someone else did invite a same-sex date, introduced to everyone as a roommate.
The worries have subsided now. Frank recently retired.
Even on his last day in uniform, Frank was concerned about keeping up appearances.
Dave attended the ceremony, but stayed in the background.
Frank said he cut his remarks short when he started getting emotional.
"I didn't want anything to slip."
Kate Wiltrout, (757) 446-2629, kate.wiltrout@pilotonline.com
__._,_.___
http://hamptonroads.com/2009/09/dont-ask-dont-tell-dont-ever-slip
http://tinyurl.com/ycnq4r3
The Virginian-Pilot
Norfolk
Sunday, September 27, 2009
"Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Don't ever slip up ...
NORFOLK -- Since 1993, a generation of gay sailors, Marines, soldiers and airmen has learned to survive on the military's margins.
That year, President Bill Clinton prohibited the military from asking about individuals' sexual orientation - even as Congress mandated the discharge of anyone engaging in homosexual acts or identifying themselves as gay.
About 13,000 gays and lesbians have been discharged since the changes took place. Still, a far greater number of gay Americans are serving, or have served, in silence.
They walk a fine line, constantly recalculating how much of their personal lives to share with co-workers, learning which doctors and chaplains they can trust, and in the safest cases, finding bosses who subtly make clear that actions, not adjectives, are the best measure of a good sailor.
The Virginian-Pilot interviewed three gay members of the military about what it's like to serve without disclosing a key part of their identity.
Because naming them could jeopardize their careers, the newspaper agreed not to use their real names or include details that would allow them to be recognized.
Here are their stories.
Phoebe, who works on communications equipment on a Norfolk-based surface ship, is partway through her first hitch in the Navy.
Outspoken but not defensive, Phoebe said she didn't know she was gay when she enlisted. But after a few relationships with men, one of which resulted, unintentionally, in pregnancy, she realized she was a lesbian.
She laughs now about breaking two pieces of news to her surprised parents: First, she was pregnant. Second, she was gay.
It hasn't been easy, but she's managed to balance motherhood and the military. Her parents care for her child when her ship deploys.
She's a no-nonsense sailor, promoted three times in four years, and she doesn't think work and personal lives should mix too much. The bridge of a warship, she said, isn't an appropriate place to talk about intimate relationships - gay or straight.
But when you live together, and you're deployed together and you sleep in a small compartment, she said, it's hard to keep the most basic truth about yourself private.
She abides by the rules. But curse words fly when she talks about the current policy.
"I think it's bull that I could get kicked out for something that has nothing to do with the military. I can go die for my country, and I can't be gay?" she said, before letting loose with a choice expletive.
The "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy prohibits the military from inquiring about individuals' sexual tendencies and pursuing rumors of homosexual conduct. Individuals cannot talk about their sexual orientation; nor can they be harassed over perceived sexual preferences.
But federal law offers no protection if credible evidence of gay behavior comes to a commanding officer's attention. The law clearly states that gay individuals create "an unacceptable risk" to "morale, good order and discipline and unit cohesion."
Phoebe posed a theoretical question to those who think gay men and women have no place in the military. "What's worse?" she asked. "Having a terrorist attack? Or having a homo stop it?"
Although she gets tired of always having to edit her speech around co-workers, Phoebe doesn't feel particularly vulnerable.
She's confident that the commanding officer of her ship knows she's gay.
The C.O. asked her once what she thought of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Her response was not suitable for publication.
Phoebe believes that most people in her division know her truth, but she's careful not to provide any proof.
"Everyone on my ship assumes, but I've never come out and said anything to anyone I didn't trust," she said.
She described an informal network of gay sailors on her ship.
Phoebe said she knows them all, and when asked roughly how many there are, proceeded to count them out on her fingers. About a dozen, she concluded, including officers, chiefs and enlisted sailors of both sexes.
With rare exceptions, gay sailors stationed on the same ship don't get involved in romantic relationships, she said. But it's nice to have friends who are dealing with the same issues.
When the ship pulled into a foreign port, Phoebe said, the gay sailors would often head off together to a hole-in-the-wall gay bar.
She takes some solace that under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," superiors are not supposed to inquire about her sexuality. So as long as she's careful, she isn't too worried about being investigated.
"I could hang out with the gayest guy in the world, wearing a dress, and it wouldn't matter," Phoebe said. "Unless there's proof, there's nothing they can do."
Phoebe said concerns about gay sailors hitting on straight shipmates are overblown: "That's why we have shower curtains! There are bathroom stalls, and you have a curtain on your rack."
She also mentioned that there's plenty of illicit interaction between men and women on her ship, even though Navy policy forbids sex while a boat is under way. On a recent deployment, she said, the captain put 10 people on the ship on restriction for having sex. One case involved a tryst between an officer and an enlisted sailor, she said - a type of fraternization verboten at sea or ashore.
Although angered by what she perceives as official discrimination against gays, Phoebe said no one has been rude or discriminatory toward her.
If Congress changed the law to allow gays to serve openly, "it wouldn't change much for me," she said.
Then she conceded that it would be a weight off her shoulders: "I could walk down the road with my girlfriend's hand in mine and not worry about someone from my ship seeing me."
Richard enlisted almost 20 years ago and, until recently, didn't give much thought to what it would be like to be a gay military man.
Then, a few years ago, he accepted a truth he'd fought to bury for years: He is gay.
The acknowledgment came as a great relief, even at home. He remains married to a woman he met in the military. They have school-age children.
In some ways, their marriage is stronger now. He and his wife are no longer lovers, but they're still best friends and partners committed to raising their kids in a loving home.
Because there's so much at stake - his job, his family's health insurance, his retirement - he worries about someone discovering the truth before he's eligible to retire in a few years.
Trained in multiple foreign languages for a job that requires travel and a security clearance, he knows his skills would fetch a handsome salary in the civilian world. He would happily stay in uniform if the law changed. If it doesn't, he's prepared to retire as soon as he can.
In a recent interview with Richard and his wife in the living room of their two-story house, in a typical Hampton Roads subdivision, the couple talked about their lives.
His wife finds support on the Internet from other women married to gay men. It's not as rare as you might think, they say.
Richard has turned to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network to learn which actions do or don't violate the law.
For example, he explains, it's OK for a soldier to go to a gay bar - but it's not OK to dance with another man. It's OK to watch a movie with a same-sex partner - but not to kiss or hold that partner's hand. It's fine to march in a gay pride parade- but not to hold a placard identifying yourself as a lesbian sailor.
Having to stay attuned to those specific legalities has worn Richard down.
He takes seriously the American ideals of justice and equality. That his own government denies him both, he said, takes its toll.
"Is our military representative of the freedoms of our nation?" he asked rhetorically. "If I can't go to the movies and hold somebody's hand, am I free?"
Having to lie about tiny things gets tiresome, and eventually, Richard said, leads to a bigger problem:
"It's important people can be true to themselves. If you can't be true to yourselves, you can't be true to the people around you."
The current policy encourages lying, he said - and even small lies about where you spent the weekend or what you watched on TV turn into a bigger breach of trust.
"When, by law, you are compelling people to lie about their personal lives, you're driving a wedge between people and their unit," he said.
He is confident the military would accept the change without much trouble.
"Saying our military can't adapt to those challenges is really selling our military short," he said.
Like Richard, Frank didn't accept being gay until after he'd married and become a father.
He enlisted to get away from home.
"I was running away from home, and it was the best way to keep a roof over my head, food in my stomach, and a little bit of change in my pocket," he said during an interview at a Virginia Beach Starbucks.
When he joined up, a few years before "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was adopted, enlistment forms asked if recruits had homosexual tendencies or experiences - and answering yes meant you couldn't serve.
Frank lied.
He didn't want to be gay. So he repressed it. He took his marriage vows seriously and stayed faithful to his wife, whom he met on duty.
His control lasted 10 years, until Frank realized he couldn't deny reality. The couple divorced. Their youngest child wasn't yet in school; the older one was in grade school.
Frank and his kids stayed together, and eventually his partner, Dave, joined them.
The arrangement was tested when Frank prepared to deploy a few years ago and Dave became the kids' guardian - taking them shopping, shuttling them to dentist and doctor appointments, overseeing their homework.
"It was rough. It was a little scary," Frank said. He knew his partner would be a good father figure, but he worried that the pressure of parenting might be too much for him.
It almost was. The couple came close to breaking up while Frank was gone, although Dave promised to take care of the kids regardless. They got through the rough patch and are still together.
Frank described years of nagging worries that his secret would be revealed. "I constantly felt like I had to watch what I did," he said.
He knows five gay sailors who were discharged or chose to leave the Navy because bearing their secret was too hard.
Occasionally, over drinks, away from the office, a fellow sailor would broach the topic.
"They'll start off saying, 'You don't have to answer me and I'm not supposed to ask, but I want to let you know that I don't care. I'm just curious,' " Frank recalled.
If he trusted the person, Frank would acknowledge being gay. But he didn't feel comfortable bringing his partner along to the command Christmas party - even though someone else did invite a same-sex date, introduced to everyone as a roommate.
The worries have subsided now. Frank recently retired.
Even on his last day in uniform, Frank was concerned about keeping up appearances.
Dave attended the ceremony, but stayed in the background.
Frank said he cut his remarks short when he started getting emotional.
"I didn't want anything to slip."
Kate Wiltrout, (757) 446-2629, kate.wiltrout@pilotonline.com
__._,_.___
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Vaccine helps prevent HIV infection
A world first: Vaccine helps prevent HIV infection
BANGKOK – For the first time, an experimental vaccine has prevented infection with the AIDS virus, a watershed event in the deadly epidemic and a surprising result. Recent failures led many scientists to think such a vaccine might never be possible.
The vaccine cut the risk of becoming infected with HIV by more than 31 percent in the world's largest AIDS vaccine trial of more than 16,000 volunteers in Thailand, researchers announced Thursday in Bangkok.
Even though the benefit is modest, "it's the first evidence that we could have a safe and effective preventive vaccine," Col. Jerome Kim said in a telephone interview. He helped lead the study for the U.S. Army, which sponsored it with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
The institute's director, Dr. Anthony Fauci, warned that this is "not the end of the road," but said he was surprised and very pleased by the outcome.
"It gives me cautious optimism about the possibility of improving this result" and developing a more effective AIDS vaccine, Fauci said in a telephone interview. "This is something that we can do."
Even a marginally helpful vaccine could have a big impact. Every day, 7,500 people worldwide are newly infected with HIV; 2 million died of AIDS in 2007, the U.N. agency UNAIDS estimates.
"Today marks an historic milestone," said Mitchell Warren, executive director of the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, an international group that has worked toward developing a vaccine.
"It will take time and resources to fully analyze and understand the data, but there is little doubt that this finding will energize and redirect the AIDS vaccine field," he said in a statement.
The Thailand Ministry of Public Health conducted the study, which used strains of HIV common in Thailand. Whether such a vaccine would work against other strains in the U.S., Africa or elsewhere in the world is unknown, scientists stressed.
"This is a scientific breakthrough," Thai Health Minister Witthaya Kaewparadai told a news conference in Bangkok. "For the first time ever there is evidence that HIV vaccine has preventative efficacy."
The study actually tested a two-vaccine combo in a "prime-boost" approach, where the first one primes the immune system to attack HIV and the second one strengthens the response.
They are ALVAC, from Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccine division of French drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis; and AIDSVAX, originally developed by VaxGen Inc. and now held by Global Solutions for Infectious Diseases, a nonprofit founded by some former VaxGen employees.
ALVAC uses canarypox, a bird virus altered so it can't cause human disease, to ferry synthetic versions of three HIV genes into the body. AIDSVAX contains a genetically engineered version of a protein on HIV's surface. The vaccines are not made from whole virus — dead or alive — and cannot cause HIV.
Neither vaccine in the study prevented HIV infection when tested individually in earlier trials, and dozens of scientists had called the new one futile when it began in 2003.
"I really didn't have high hopes at all that we would see a positive result," Fauci confessed.
The results proved the skeptics wrong.
"The combination is stronger than each of the individual members," said the Army's Kim, a physician who manages the Army's HIV vaccine program.
The study tested the combo in HIV-negative Thai men and women ages 18 to 30 at average risk of becoming infected. Half received four "priming" doses of ALVAC and two "boost" doses of AIDSVAX over six months. The others received dummy shots. No one knew who got what until the study ended.
All were given condoms, counseling and treatment for any sexually transmitted infections, and were tested every six months for HIV. Any who became infected were given free treatment with antiviral medicines.
Participants were followed for three years after vaccination ended.
Results: New infections occurred in 51 of the 8,197 given vaccine and in 74 of the 8,198 who received dummy shots. That worked out to a 31 percent lower risk of infection for the vaccine group.
The vaccine had no effect on levels of HIV in the blood of those who did become infected. That had been another goal of the study — seeing whether the vaccine could limit damage to the immune system and help keep infected people from developing full-blown AIDS.
That result is "one of the most important and intriguing findings of this trial," Fauci said. It suggests that the signs scientists have been using to gauge whether a vaccine was actually giving protection may not be valid.
"It is conceivable that we haven't even identified yet" what really shows immunity, which is both "important and humbling" after decades of vaccine research, Fauci said.
Details of the $105 million study will be given at a vaccine conference in Paris in October.
This is the third big vaccine trial since 1983, when HIV was identified as the cause of AIDS. In 2007, Merck & Co. stopped a study of its experimental vaccine after seeing it did not prevent HIV infection. Later analysis suggested the vaccine might even raise the risk of infection in certain men. The vaccine itself did not cause infection.
In 2003, AIDSVAX flunked two large trials — the first late-stage tests of any AIDS vaccine at the time.
It is unclear whether vaccine makers will seek to license the two-vaccine combo in Thailand. Before the trial began, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said other studies would be needed before the vaccine could be considered for U.S. licensing.
Also unclear is whether Thai volunteers who received dummy shots will now be offered the vaccine. Researchers had said they would do so if the vaccine showed clear benefit — defined as reducing the risk of infection by at least 50 percent.
Those issues, plus how to proceed with future studies, will be discussed among the governments, study sponsors and companies involved in the trial, Kim said. Scientists want to know how long will protection last, whether booster shots will be needed, and whether the vaccine helps prevent infection in gay men and injection drug users, since it was tested mostly in heterosexuals in the Thai trial.
The study was done in Thailand because U.S. Army scientists did pivotal research in that country when the AIDS epidemic emerged there, isolating virus strains and providing genetic information on them to vaccine makers. The Thai government also strongly supported the idea of doing the study.
___
Associated Press Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione reported from Minneapolis.
___
On the Net:
Study information: http://www.hivresearch.org/phase3/factsheet.html
Vaccine coalition: http://www.avac.org/
UNAIDS: http://tinyurl.com/krq7kr
Government AIDS info: http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/topics/HIVAIDS/
-----------------
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090924/ap_on_re_as/med_aids_vaccine
----------------------
BANGKOK – For the first time, an experimental vaccine has prevented infection with the AIDS virus, a watershed event in the deadly epidemic and a surprising result. Recent failures led many scientists to think such a vaccine might never be possible.
The vaccine cut the risk of becoming infected with HIV by more than 31 percent in the world's largest AIDS vaccine trial of more than 16,000 volunteers in Thailand, researchers announced Thursday in Bangkok.
Even though the benefit is modest, "it's the first evidence that we could have a safe and effective preventive vaccine," Col. Jerome Kim said in a telephone interview. He helped lead the study for the U.S. Army, which sponsored it with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
The institute's director, Dr. Anthony Fauci, warned that this is "not the end of the road," but said he was surprised and very pleased by the outcome.
"It gives me cautious optimism about the possibility of improving this result" and developing a more effective AIDS vaccine, Fauci said in a telephone interview. "This is something that we can do."
Even a marginally helpful vaccine could have a big impact. Every day, 7,500 people worldwide are newly infected with HIV; 2 million died of AIDS in 2007, the U.N. agency UNAIDS estimates.
"Today marks an historic milestone," said Mitchell Warren, executive director of the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, an international group that has worked toward developing a vaccine.
"It will take time and resources to fully analyze and understand the data, but there is little doubt that this finding will energize and redirect the AIDS vaccine field," he said in a statement.
The Thailand Ministry of Public Health conducted the study, which used strains of HIV common in Thailand. Whether such a vaccine would work against other strains in the U.S., Africa or elsewhere in the world is unknown, scientists stressed.
"This is a scientific breakthrough," Thai Health Minister Witthaya Kaewparadai told a news conference in Bangkok. "For the first time ever there is evidence that HIV vaccine has preventative efficacy."
The study actually tested a two-vaccine combo in a "prime-boost" approach, where the first one primes the immune system to attack HIV and the second one strengthens the response.
They are ALVAC, from Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccine division of French drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis; and AIDSVAX, originally developed by VaxGen Inc. and now held by Global Solutions for Infectious Diseases, a nonprofit founded by some former VaxGen employees.
ALVAC uses canarypox, a bird virus altered so it can't cause human disease, to ferry synthetic versions of three HIV genes into the body. AIDSVAX contains a genetically engineered version of a protein on HIV's surface. The vaccines are not made from whole virus — dead or alive — and cannot cause HIV.
Neither vaccine in the study prevented HIV infection when tested individually in earlier trials, and dozens of scientists had called the new one futile when it began in 2003.
"I really didn't have high hopes at all that we would see a positive result," Fauci confessed.
The results proved the skeptics wrong.
"The combination is stronger than each of the individual members," said the Army's Kim, a physician who manages the Army's HIV vaccine program.
The study tested the combo in HIV-negative Thai men and women ages 18 to 30 at average risk of becoming infected. Half received four "priming" doses of ALVAC and two "boost" doses of AIDSVAX over six months. The others received dummy shots. No one knew who got what until the study ended.
All were given condoms, counseling and treatment for any sexually transmitted infections, and were tested every six months for HIV. Any who became infected were given free treatment with antiviral medicines.
Participants were followed for three years after vaccination ended.
Results: New infections occurred in 51 of the 8,197 given vaccine and in 74 of the 8,198 who received dummy shots. That worked out to a 31 percent lower risk of infection for the vaccine group.
The vaccine had no effect on levels of HIV in the blood of those who did become infected. That had been another goal of the study — seeing whether the vaccine could limit damage to the immune system and help keep infected people from developing full-blown AIDS.
That result is "one of the most important and intriguing findings of this trial," Fauci said. It suggests that the signs scientists have been using to gauge whether a vaccine was actually giving protection may not be valid.
"It is conceivable that we haven't even identified yet" what really shows immunity, which is both "important and humbling" after decades of vaccine research, Fauci said.
Details of the $105 million study will be given at a vaccine conference in Paris in October.
This is the third big vaccine trial since 1983, when HIV was identified as the cause of AIDS. In 2007, Merck & Co. stopped a study of its experimental vaccine after seeing it did not prevent HIV infection. Later analysis suggested the vaccine might even raise the risk of infection in certain men. The vaccine itself did not cause infection.
In 2003, AIDSVAX flunked two large trials — the first late-stage tests of any AIDS vaccine at the time.
It is unclear whether vaccine makers will seek to license the two-vaccine combo in Thailand. Before the trial began, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said other studies would be needed before the vaccine could be considered for U.S. licensing.
Also unclear is whether Thai volunteers who received dummy shots will now be offered the vaccine. Researchers had said they would do so if the vaccine showed clear benefit — defined as reducing the risk of infection by at least 50 percent.
Those issues, plus how to proceed with future studies, will be discussed among the governments, study sponsors and companies involved in the trial, Kim said. Scientists want to know how long will protection last, whether booster shots will be needed, and whether the vaccine helps prevent infection in gay men and injection drug users, since it was tested mostly in heterosexuals in the Thai trial.
The study was done in Thailand because U.S. Army scientists did pivotal research in that country when the AIDS epidemic emerged there, isolating virus strains and providing genetic information on them to vaccine makers. The Thai government also strongly supported the idea of doing the study.
___
Associated Press Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione reported from Minneapolis.
___
On the Net:
Study information: http://www.hivresearch.org/phase3/factsheet.html
Vaccine coalition: http://www.avac.org/
UNAIDS: http://tinyurl.com/krq7kr
Government AIDS info: http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/topics/HIVAIDS/
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090924/ap_on_re_as/med_aids_vaccine
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Wednesday, September 23, 2009
New UN President Says Being Gay 'Not Acceptable'
New UN President Says Being Gay 'Not Acceptable'
By Carlos Santoscoy
Published: September 23, 2009
The new president of the United Nations has called being gay “not acceptable.”
Ali Abdussalam Treki, of Libya, opened the 64th session of the United Nations General Assembly Friday with a press conference where he answered questions on a variety of topics.
When asked about a UN resolution that calls for the universal decriminalization of being gay, Treki called the matter “very sensitive.”
“[T]hat matter is very sensitive, very touchy,” Treki said. “As a Muslim, I am not in favor of it … it is not accepted by the majority of countries. My opinion is not in favor of this matter at all. I think it's not really acceptable by our religion, our tradition”
“It is not acceptable in the majority of the world. And there are some countries that allow that, thinking it is a kind of democracy … I think it is not,” he added.
The resolution eventually was approved during last year's session but proved controversial. President Obama reversed course on the issue and backed the resolution. But Vatican officials denounced it, saying it might promote gay marriage.
The resolution, sponsored by France and the Netherlands, met with strong resistance from a group of Arab leaders who challenged it with a statement condemning being gay. The anti-gay resolution failed but attracted 60 signatures on its first day. The Arab-backed statement decried the decriminalization of being gay because it might lead to “the social normalization, and possibly the legitimization, of many deplorable acts including pedophilia.”
Florida Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs committee, blasted the new president's comments.
“The anti-gay bigotry spewed by this Qaddafi shill demonstrates once again that the UN has been hijacked by advocates of hate and intolerance,” she said.
By Carlos Santoscoy
Published: September 23, 2009
The new president of the United Nations has called being gay “not acceptable.”
Ali Abdussalam Treki, of Libya, opened the 64th session of the United Nations General Assembly Friday with a press conference where he answered questions on a variety of topics.
When asked about a UN resolution that calls for the universal decriminalization of being gay, Treki called the matter “very sensitive.”
“[T]hat matter is very sensitive, very touchy,” Treki said. “As a Muslim, I am not in favor of it … it is not accepted by the majority of countries. My opinion is not in favor of this matter at all. I think it's not really acceptable by our religion, our tradition”
“It is not acceptable in the majority of the world. And there are some countries that allow that, thinking it is a kind of democracy … I think it is not,” he added.
The resolution eventually was approved during last year's session but proved controversial. President Obama reversed course on the issue and backed the resolution. But Vatican officials denounced it, saying it might promote gay marriage.
The resolution, sponsored by France and the Netherlands, met with strong resistance from a group of Arab leaders who challenged it with a statement condemning being gay. The anti-gay resolution failed but attracted 60 signatures on its first day. The Arab-backed statement decried the decriminalization of being gay because it might lead to “the social normalization, and possibly the legitimization, of many deplorable acts including pedophilia.”
Florida Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs committee, blasted the new president's comments.
“The anti-gay bigotry spewed by this Qaddafi shill demonstrates once again that the UN has been hijacked by advocates of hate and intolerance,” she said.
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