A reader writes:
I like reading Sailer’s site; he’s a smart guy ready to take massive grief for pointing out politically poisonous facts from the social sciences. But he tries too often to present himself as The Guy Who Knows Everything. This is plainly true on AIDS in Africa. The key to understanding why AIDS is so common among heterosexuals in sub-Saharan Africa is an STD called chancroid. From the Los Angeles Times of March 1, 1992:
One of the ways it has spread so quickly in Africa is through a sexually transmitted disease called chancroid, which commonly appears as an open sore on the sex organs – and allows unobstructed passage for the virus. In Western societies, a man with open sores on his penis would find few willing sex partners. But, in Africa, married women find it difficult, if not impossible, to refuse the sexual advances of their husbands. Although that attitude is slowly changing, it remains the norm.
This explains why it is as easy for heterosexuals to be infected with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa as homosexuals. But the media never mention it. Here’s what the Journal of Development Studies said about chancroid in 2002:
While STDs are common in the industrialised countries and can act as co-factors in the transmission of HIV, they play a more significant role in Africa and in South and Southeast Asia because of the kinds of STDs that are prevalent and because of the failure to treat them. In affluent countries, chancroid is virtually unknown. Cumulative cases in the United States for 1989 to 1996 were just over 17,000, compared to 4.1 million cases of gonorrhea, 2.6 million cases of chlamydia, and 1.2 million cases of syphilis [CDC, 1999]. In Africa and South and South-east Asia, on the other hand, genital ulcer diseases such as chancroid constitute a much larger proportion of sexually transmitted diseases. Chancroid is one of the most prevalent STDs in Zimbabwe; in Harare and Bulawayo, the two largest cities, chancroid is one of the top two complaints of men visiting STD clinics, along with urethritis (generally gonorrhoeal). Genital ulcer diseases are most common in areas where water is difficult to acquire and persona l hygiene suffers. While there is convincing evidence that all STDs can increase the transmission of HIV, genital ulcers increase the risk five-to tenfold [World Bank, 1993].
The media are apparently just too squeamish to mention that tens of millions of hetero African men have open sores on their genitals, which facilitates the spread of HIV. This squeamishness has led to a lot of bad reporting over the years.
The Dish 