March/April 2001 Vol.4, No. 3

Contents The Special Relationship Reaffirmed by Melvin Rhodes When the Angel Leaves the Storm, Part 2 by Darris McNeely Mad Cow Disease: The Fear Alone Is Costly by Cecil E. Maranville Another Crack in the Transatlantic Alliance? by Paul Kieffer In Brief...World News Review by Cecil E. Maranville and John Ross Shroeder This is the Way...Running Better Than Ever by Robin Webber In Brief... World News Review AIDS Threat Persists If you visit Time Magazine's Internet site, scan the main menu on the left side of the screen until you come to "Special Features." Click on "AIDS in Africa." A photo essay will appear, headlined by the starkly sobering graphic of a red chronometer. The numbers change every 25 seconds, marking the infection of another African with HIV. The clock reads over 25,500,000. World News and Prophecy and The Good News have reported regularly about the havoc wreaked by AIDS in Africa. Time has found a way to dramatize the horrible reality of the dimensions of this tragedy in a way that words alone cannot accomplish. Once thought to be on the way to controlling AIDS, the U.S. population has reason for increased concern. A group of scientists and researchers working with the disease were confronted recently at a conference in California with statistical proof that HIV-infected people are spreading the disease with careless abandon. A series of studies of a variety of groups, including homosexuals and heterosexuals, showed that a majority did not reveal their infection status to sex partners. Prevention programs, touted as reason to believe that the threat of AIDS had peaked in the United States, are not reaching HIV-infected people. Sexual sin, says the apostle Paul in 1Corinthians 6:18, harms the body, in addition to the ultimate penalty sin garners. Dr. George Lamp, director of the Universitywide AIDS Research Program, related that HIV-infected people are receiving medication, but no one helps them with "the psycho-social and relationship issues." If people had ears to hear what God reveals in the Bible, they would find the help they need. He reveals the behavior that helps produce and maintain healthy minds and bodies: any sexual relationship outside of that supreme expression of love between a husband and wife is sin. God condemns sin in hope of motivating the sinner to stop the wrong behavior, and He offers forgiveness for the past to those who do. Thereby, we have an accepting, loving environment with realistic boundaries that would enhance and enrich the lives of those who follow the program. As it is, many people seem to want to take their chances that medical breakthroughs might push back the boundaries of disease that naturally result from wrong behavior. It's a reckless choice. From the earliest treatment programs, HIV mutated within infected people and resisted medications. Those mutations have now begun to be passed on from person to person-no longer developing only within the HIV-infected. "Between 1995 and 1998, less than 4 percent of the patients caught (the) resistant virus. In 1999 and 2000, this rose to 14 percent" ("Drug-Resistant AIDS Virus Spreading" by Daniel Q. Haney, AP, February 8, 2001, emphasis added). Because many gamble that HIV is treatable, they recklessly engage in what we will politely refer to as "high-risk sexual behavior." The result is not only an increase in HIV infections, but also in another sexually transmissible disease that many thought was controlled-syphilis. Because of these alarming trends in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has "recommended a search for new, innovative ways to get the safe-sex message to gay and bisexual men in large cities" ("Alarm Over Calif. Syphilis Outbreak" by Erin McClam, AP, February 22, 2001). We have a suggestion for the CDC: Pass around the good news that our Creator issued an instruction manual (the Bible). If people would live by it, they would avoid the immeasurable pain and financial penalties their present choices are bringing on themselves and others. Additional source: Sacramento Bee. One More Cheap Drug Problem Young adults have found another substance to give them a rush, but it's rushing some to their graves. Ever vulnerable to the unscrupulous pushers of potions, young people in their late teens and early 20s are buying laughing gas to get high. Known on the street as "hippie crack," the gas is attractive in part because it is non-addictive and inexpensive. Laughing gas (nitrous oxide) is not a controlled substance, which means that it's legal to sell or possess it. Small gas canisters called whippets cost as little as 50 cents apiece and are sold with a tool and balloons. The tool is for cracking open the canister and dispensing its contents into the balloons for inhaling, called "huffing." Despite the obvious intended use of these items, distributors have skirted the law by labeling their packages, "for food use only." (Nitrous oxide is the propellant in cans of whipping cream.) However, the death of a 20-year-old Virginia Tech student enabled prosecutors to successfully convict a Phoenix distributor on the technical charge of mislabeling the product. About a dozen states have attempted to combat misuse of nitrous oxide by legislating stricter labeling and distribution guidelines. A U.S. federal survey conducted in 1999 showed that its use as a recreational drug had increased 20 percent over the previous year. Nationwide, 6.6 million people had used it at least once. Further, the largest age group among new users was those 35 and older. A number of vendors blatantly sold balloons full of laughing gas at a professional football game tailgate party last fall. Some readers will recall traveling carnivals that would sell a minute's worth of laughing gas for a few cents to the public. Users would laugh and act silly until the drug wore off, leaving them confused. Even that was probably irresponsible, but today's use is far from humorous. Today's users sometimes mix it with marijuana and other drugs, seeking to enhance the impact of each. They also will tie a bag around their heads to increase the amount of gas they inhale, which is how the Virginia Tech student died. Nitrous oxide replaces the oxygen in the blood, and a person asphyxiates. Because it is an anesthetic, users are not aware that they are in danger. The gas can cause people to lose motor control so rapidly that they fall over. A Dateline NBC segment on nitrous oxide huffing showed a Phoenix teenage girl passing out and falling to the ground at a rave party. Scientists have found that regular use can cause reproductive problems. A 1992 New England Journal of Medicine study revealed that women exposed to high levels of nitrous oxide in their jobs as dental assistants faced a greater risk of infertility. Prolonged use is also believed to damage the bone marrow and the nervous system, due to a diminished ability to process vitamin B-12. Sources: The Arizona Republic . Keeping Up With Africa: A Continent in Jeopardy Though there are a few bright spots, the overall African situation still looks decidedly grim. Several countries on the continent are convulsed by troublesome insurgencies. Six more are heavily involved in a Congolese war. Moreover Ethiopia and Eritrea are taking time to lick their wounds in the aftermath of a long, bloody conflict. And several countries that may have escaped military grief are embroiled in very serious economic difficulties. Perhaps up to half of sub-Saharan Africa's 600 million people eke out an existence on about 65 cents a day. In terms of leadership, Zimbabwe's President Mugabe is now being called Africa's Mussolini by some observers as he takes his people further and further down the road to fascism. A few politicians in Britain are even calling for Zimbabwe's expulsion from the Commonwealth. This is the ugly picture that high officials of the World Bank had to face as they recently toured African countries. The question is: Who will mend Africa? The current scenario seems beyond human solution. Sources: The Economist, The Daily Telegraph (London). Contributors: Cecil E. Maranville and John Ross Schroeder wnp

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