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ContentBody{ FormattedBody{value='By Rosalind Harrison-Chirimuuta
Western Medicine As Contested Knowledge 1997
https://www.virusmyth.com/aids/hiv/rcracism.htm

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There is little argument that science has contributed greatly to our understanding of the external world, so great that knowledge acquired by scientific means is considered more likely to be true than other forms of knowledge. This holds for medicine as for other branches of science, and the practical application of medical science has given rise to therapies of unquestioned benefit. One of the great achievements of medical science was the discovery of micro-organisms and the recognition of their role in a large number of different infectious diseases. The provision of clean water and sanitation, disinfection and sterilisation during surgery, immunisation and antibiotics- all are based on an understanding of the behaviour of micro-organisms. Yet from the successes of last century we come, at the end of this century, to a challenge that has so far defeated the best that medical science has to offer. The U.S. Government alone is spending about a billion dollars a year researching the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome(1), but there is still no cure, not even an effective treatment, no vaccine, nor even agreement as to how the Human Immunodeficiency Virus destroys the immune system. Is this because AIDS is just a more difficult problem than medical science has dealt with before, but with persistence it will be conquered, or could there be something fundamentally wrong with the scientific investigation of this illness? In this chapter I will endeavour to examine the AIDS science that claims that AIDS originated in Africa and the possible racist underpinnings of this science. I will discuss the alternative possibility of a laboratory origin of HIV. And finally I will look at the political and economic aspects of AIDS research in particular and science in general that may have encouraged or promoted the belief that AIDS originated in Africa.

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Source: Chapter 2 in Western Medicine As Contested Knowledge, edited by Andrew Cunningham and Bridie Andrews, published by Manchester University Press, 1997 (series on Studies in Imperialism).', representation=storage}