UN AIDS estimates doubled
Medical experts working for the United Nations say they have grossly underestimated the spread of the AIDS virus worldwide, and they now believe that new infections are occurring almost twice as fast as they thought just one year ago. Instead of 8,200 new infections a day, they now believe that 16,000 are infected daily. One in every 100 sexually active adults under age 49 worldwide is believed to be infected by HIV, but only one in ten knows it.
The new data, released just prior to World AIDS Day on 1 December, suggest that 30.6 million people around the world are now living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The last estimate, made in 1996, was that 22.6 million people had the virus. The UN report said that if current rates hold steady, those infected with the HIV virus “will soar to 40 million” by the year 2000.
The UN now estimates that 2.3 million people around the world will die of AIDS this year, an increase of more than 50 percent from an estimate that 1.5 million people died of the disease in 1996.
Two-thirds of the people infected with HIV live in sub-Saharan Africa, and UN experts say the epidemic in that region had been badly underestimated even though it was known to be severe. Altogether, the UN estimated that 9.7 million people in sub-Saharan Africa have died of AIDS since the beginning of the epidemic in the late 1970s and early ’80s.
Worldwide, the United Nations estimates that 11.7 million people of all ages have died from AIDS. This year’s deaths account for one-fifth of all AIDS deaths since the start of the epidemic.
(Source: The New York Times, 26 November, A6; The Washington Times, 27 November, A12.)
Spinning the food race
Another report from the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, the latest in a long series of overpopulation propaganda reports issued by Hopkins, claims that “growing world population could overwhelm the [world’s] food supply in the next century.”
The report, Winning the Food Race, was authored by Don Hinrichsen, a senior consultant with the United Nations Population Fund, and appears in one of Hopkins Population Reports series.
A careful analysis of the report indicates that is just another thick slice of baloney from Hopkins would-be population controllers. Imagine, for example, a report which purports to give the latest information regarding worldwide food production and yet neglects to say even a single word about the world grain production record set in 1996 (see PRI Review), or the new grain production record being established at this very moment in 1997.
Instead, liberally borrowing from Lester Brown’s apocalyptic warnings, the report cites his old litany of environmental degradation, alleged shortages of land, water, and fertilizer, urbanization and climate change, all set to decimate future food production.
Apparently following the lead of husband-wife team of over-population alarmists, Paul and Anne Ehrlich, the report states (without any documentation what ever) that “‘Each year about 18 million people, mostly children die from starvation, malnutrition, and related causes.”
(Source: “Winning the Food Race,” Population Reports, Population Information Program, The Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health.)
Grain production continues at record levels
Although the final harvest figures are still incomplete, the latest reports from the U.S. Department of Agriculture indicate that the 1997/98 worldwide grain harvests will exceed 1,867 million metric tons (MMT), slightly above last year’s record grain production. Among the highlights of the newly released production figures is the projection of a new world record wheat harvest of 603 MMT, smashing the old 1990/91 record of 588 MMT. World rice harvests were also pegged at a new record of some 382 MMT (milled basis). Estimates for coarse grain production (mostly corn) were set at about 833 MMT, the second greatest such harvest ever, but a decline of some 22 MMT from last year’s record. China, due to a severe drought, accounted for most of the shortfall in corn production.
China’s wheat crop, however, was estimated at 121 MMT, the greatest amount of wheat ever produced by any country.
(Source: Grain: World Markets and Trade, USDA, 5 November, 19, 51–2.)
