The Catholic Church Should Openly Support Condom Use and Contraception
29 Nov 2010 1 Comment
in cultures, health, luwero war after 1980 'theft', Museveni and NRM, Religion, science
Pope Benedict XVI
The Catholic Church has done a lot of immeasurable good things in Africa and elsewhere in the world but I still cannot understand why they cannot openly support the use of condoms to reduce Sexually Transmitted Diseases(STDs), and the use of contraception methods. The church has played a crucial role in educating; treating and bringing hope to a lot of Africans. It has quietly worked against evil systems, such as South Africa’s apartheid and African dictatorships, as was the case, for instance, when one cardinal was allegedly used to support Yoweri Museveni’s NRA rebels against Obote and Iddil Amin regimes in Uganda. Pope John Paul II also worked against communism and strongly opposed the war in Iraq, calling it a defeat for humanity which could not be morally or legally justified.
Nonetheless, recently, Pope Benedict XVI seems to have done a simple but not a ‘sharp’ u-turn on use of condoms when he said that people should use them which were a bit better than his April, 2009 message on his trip in Africa when he said that the use of condoms worsens the HIV problem. Benedict was born in 1927 and he has seen how the world has been changing since. So we expect him to see a lot of things differently though we expect him to review the abstinence message too. The church has been preaching abstinence outside married life and faithfulness within it and probably it would be effective if it was followed, but the truth is that people don’t do so.
There’s a lot of disinformation on the internet about regarding the safety of condoms. I suspect that the Catholic Church or religious leaders have something to do with it. The main problem with condoms is that they may break, or fall off when using them. I just don’t see how an HIV virus would get through these pores when water doesn’t. It’s physically impossible. Unless the condom is damaged, the risk to HIV is very low.
Therefore, the Vatican and other religious groups’ claims about permeable condoms are wrong. The World Health Organisation has already advised people to disregard messages from the church about this issue. The message of “abstinence” and “high-risk partners” should be preached alongside the use of condoms. There are some people who cannot abstain from knocking on certain ‘HIV addresses’ even if they are not landlords or tenants. They may just go there just to drop ‘letters’ or ‘leaflets’ or ‘ just delivering take-aways’, and we need to find a way to protect them. So postmen, ambulance people, take-away people and marketers all need to be protected from the dogs in the houses.
Several organisations including Lancet, a UK Medical journal, have been criticising the church over their condom message and I think the criticism has started bearing some fruits going by the pope’s recent message. We just hope that the rest of the church takes this message seriously, after all, condoms have already been proven as effective, in most African countries and beyond a doubt that they help in reducing the spread of HIV-AIDS and other STDs.
The Church’s prohibition of contraception is also wrong since it does not seem to have any Biblical foundation, apart from the story of Onan spilling his seed on the ground, which is a special case. It seems more likely to have come from Aristotle, the source of much bad doctrine. The Pope has continually forced his own views on how women may control their own fertility but I think it is wrong.
The pope’s U-turn in just a year’s time is a confirmation that merely because one is famous (or wealthy) doesn’t make one intellectually or morally superior to the rest of humanity. In reality, most of the so called famous people have a very limited understanding about how the rest of the world works, and are more interested in feeding their own fragile egos than examining the consequences of their actions. Many of them access no information, and base opinions solely on what is fashionably correct. They aren’t reviewing abstracts in the journals looking for relevant articles, reading up on epidemiological studies, or picking up a calculator to crunch some numbers to do a basic sanity check before publicly uttering inanities like some statements that have come to be associated with the Catholic Church over the years. Most of the time, they are merely regurgitating the same message they have heard over and over again, from the usual drones. So people following these leaders should use common sense before they take everything they say on board. We all love our religions but we also accept that very few people confess to their sins in public. So we need to find a way of protecting most especially the silent sinners because they may turn out to be useful some day.
Abbey Kibirige Semuwemba
Scientists and Politicians Should Support the Herbal Medicine Industry
25 Sep 2010 2 Comments
in science, Witchcraft
Dear readers,
It’s a fundamental of human nature that people feel bad about disease; common to all cultures whether they use Western medicine, shamanism, medicine men, witch doctors, acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine etc. The only exceptions that spring to mind are Jehovah’s Witnesses whose religion forbids medicine and vaccinations.
It’s also worth mentioning that not everything the herbal doctors advertise is nonsense. I’ve tried things on hunches and gotten good results. Evidently, in my experience, herbal medicine using concentrates and extracts can be quite efficacious.
Personally, I love herbs because of the wide variety of conditions that is said to be treatable with a single plant or group of plants. The reasons why some remedies from plants are used for so many diseases could be that they affect a common (denominator) factor responsible for the diseases and disorders. One takes them for cough but one end up treating several diseases hidden in the system as well.
Herbs have been an important source of medicine for thousands of years. The World Health Organization estimates that up to 80 percent of people still rely on herbal remedies for their health care. And there are reasons for this, namely, the high cost of drugs in clinics and pharmacies, drug resistance which often lead to treatment failure, prolong and expensive treatment of some chronic diseases which the general population cannot afford. Has anyone seen those lines at Mulago hospital? Not everyone can afford to take their wife and kids for treatment at Kampala International hospital. If herbal medicine was not in Uganda, so many Ugandans will be dead by now.
Herbal medicine in other countries
In South Africa; traditional herbs have long been used to treat various pain or inflammation-related symptoms. South Africa has the richest plant biodiversity in the world, many of which are medicinally useful .They also use herbs to treat livestock diseases.Some of the plants are employed to treat: diabetes, tumours, stomach pain, rheumatism and many other indications.
In USA, the Mormons are into natural healing and natural medicine. Partially as a consequence, many vitamin and herbal medicine companies are located in Utah. All over the United States, sales of herbs is a booming business in health food stores and pharmacists.
In Germany, an expert committee, Commission E, evaluated and approved herbal medicines until it disbanded in 1991. Today, German consumers can buy standardized over-the-counter herbal preparations that are often cheaper and more effective than synthetics.
I also read an article about an HIV herbal treatment in Iran. In that article the Iranians did not say the treatment would cure AIDS, only that it would control its symptoms and could be used with the other drugs, since it was an herbal treatment.
Herbal medicine supplements general medicine
I’m not an expert in herbal medicine and I agree that it needs to be run along with conventional medicine. Today, from forty to fifty percent of pharmaceutical drugs are plant-derived, and pharmaceutical houses are beating the bushes in South America and Africa in search of botanicals they can analyze chemically. Herbal Plants contain a wide variety of natural compounds mainly plant secondary compounds. Among the secondary compounds are the flavonoids. Flavonoids are among the most common constituents in plants. They are present in high concentrations in flowers, seeds, leaves, herbs, fruits, stems, bulbs, tea, wine, vegetables and other food sources. Below are some of the examples that show how herbs supplement general or contemporary medicine.
There was a German doctor by the names of Albert Schweitzer who established a medical mission in Gabon early in the century. He forged a relationship with a local doctor, whom Schweitzer addressed as “mon chère collègue.” Schweitzer explained that he admired the witch doctor’s ability to deal with mental illness, so he sent him patients, just as the witch doctor routinely sent Schweitzer patients who would benefit from Western medicine. In neither case did the two doctors understand the therapeutic system of the other, but both doctors respected results.
The Germans discovered that Echinacea, a valued remedy of Amerindians from the western plains, has antifungal, antibacterial, and antiviral properties, unlike synthetic antibiotics, which are only antibacterial. Experiments with root extracts demonstrated that Echinacea is an immune stimulant as well. Early in the century, Echinacea was listed in the American Formulary, but was dropped later when the medical profession got caught up in the fashion for synthetic drugs.
According to International Journal of Cancer (2007), an herbal drug called black cohosh which is used to help women cope with menopausal symptoms may reduce breast cancer risk.
In addition, several European studies demonstrated that a preparation from ginko tree leaves increases blood supply to the brain. Israeli scientists developed a preparation from the elderberry bush, Sambucol, which tames influenza and its accompanying cough. Researchers proved that milk thistle extract improves liver function and actually regenerates damaged liver cells.
Finally, the Chinese practice of acupuncture is an interesting discovery that several scientists in the developed world dismissed till USA former president, Nixon, made his surprise visit to China. When a journalist in Nixon’s entourage underwent an emergency appendectomy and lauded Chinese acupuncture for pain relief, the few curious American doctors who actually investigated the ancient treatment reported positive results. In the presence of Western doctors, Chinese doctors anesthetized a woman with acupuncture and then performed surgery on the patient while she was awake and at ease. A decade after Nixon visited China; veterinarians reported they had successfully treated animals with acupuncture. On November 5, 1997, a federal advisory panel of non-governmental medical experts announced its strong support for acupuncture .The twelve-member committee was enthusiastic about acupuncture’s ability to relieve pain and nausea with minimal side-effects.
The Department of Botany at Makerere University has done a lot of research around this area which one may find very useful to read. They did a study between January 2000 and September 2003 to document medicinal plants used to treat fungal and bacterial infections in health care in and around Queen Elizabeth Biosphere Reserve in Bushenyi and Kasese districts in western Uganda. They also did another one in August 2007.
We therefore want the government to put herbalists into some form of training like the Chinese have done to improve in the grey areas which are worrying people. However, we should all try to fight traditional practices such as the thriving market for human body parts in many African countries, where they are used in traditional medicine. In S.Africa, it has led to a lot of Muti murders”. “Muti” is the Zulu word for medicine. In Uganda, these kinds of murders have been branded ‘Ekisadaka’ meaning child sacrifice. In Tanzania, there are people hunting the albinos for purposes of making traditional medicine.
Abbey.Kibirige Semuwemba
Currently doing Masters in Public Health Promotion in the UK
UNCIRCUMCISED MEN ‘TEBAMALAKO’
09 Jul 2009 1 Comment
Kampala international hospital
Dear readers,
There is a lot of research I have read around this topic and I think I understand where some people are coming from who are against circumcission. However, I’m gonna take the side I would like to sell to the Uganda public which is: men should go for circumcision or take their baby boys for circumcision as soon as possible.
It’s true that circumcision is a painful experience as it was done to me when I was above the baby stage. They deceived me that they were taking me to Kampala city for a ride and I woke up in Kawolo hospital. I think I remember this pain because I was a bit older when it was done but I don’t think babies do remember this pain when they grow up. Yes, when there are still babies or infants, they feel and express this pain in stereotypic ways involving vocalization, facial expression, body movements and autonomic activity but they later become OK and smile normally. The wound would heal normally without undue bleeding or infection, and that the outcome will be just a ‘normal circumcised penis’.
One Ugandan called Mulindwa Edward asked:‘………… Abbey Ssemuwemba must be thrown out the window for he claims that circumcising men does have an effect on their sexual enjoyment. How does Abey make this conclusion when he has never experienced the side of being uncircumcised?’’
One does not need to be circumcised or uncircumcised first to know the advantages or disadvantages of circumcision. Let me elaborate: when a man has got that foreskin still intact on their penis, he feels greater sexual sensation during sex due to the greater sensitivity of the protected glans, and that the foreskin is an erogenous zone in itself. A foreskin and its full complement of ‘neuroreceptors’ (as scientists call them) can easily make the uncircumcised man to come or ejaculate very fast thus leaving a woman in limbo. This is the time women start thinking: ‘Oh, AMALIDE BISELA BYANGE’ meaning the man has literally wasted her time. The uncircumcised feel a little bit too much more than the uncircumicsed men and this is where the problem comes from.
Since circumcised men have no feeling in their foreskin (in fact, no foreskin at all), the only form of stimulation comes in the form of pressure on the head and the shaft of the penis, and in the orgasm itself. This helps the uncircumcised to prolong during love making and thus helping the women to enjoy the whole game for longer. Forget about Mirima’s explanation about styles and stuff like that because those are just what we call ‘icing on the cake’ or ‘having a soda while eating at the same time’.
Lastly, uncircumcised men often experience pain during their primary sexual act while circumcised males do not. This is because the ‘frenulum’ is removed, along with the foreskin, during the circumcision operation. If you may allow me to become a biology teacher for a second,…… the uncircumcised penis contains a certain piece of skin called the frenulum – that is attached to both the prepuce and the glans of the penis. The frenulum serves the same purpose as the hymen in virgin girls/women, i.e. as a barrier to unwanted or premature sexual activity. During the first act of intercourse (or masturbation), the frenulum is torn from the mucous membrane that keeps it in place, a change that subsequently allows the foreskin to be fully retracted over the entire ‘head’ of the penis. Similarly, for women the hymen is broken during the first sexual act (though, of course, it could also be broken for reasons completely unrelated to sexual activity).
So tell me people: what is wrong with a baby boy feeling that pain when they get circumcised that will allow them to satisfy their future partners or wives and also save them from that pain when they have their first sexual experience, obviously apart from other advantages known by everybody
Just think about it
Abbey
IQ has got nothing to do with skin colour
29 Nov 2008 15 Comments
in Africa, health, science Tags: Abbey Kibirige Semuwemba
Dear folks,
I don’t know how some people arrive at the conclusion that white people have got higher Intelligence Quotient, or IQ than black people and I think that they are wrong. These are the kind of statements that are meant to pull down the little confidence some black people have got when faced with a situation of competing with a white person. In African context, it has got to do with our colonial history where a white man was always looked at as superior. However, differences in IQ have got nothing to do with race or colour. I’m going to be forced to go a little bit scientific and I hope readers do not get bored by this. There are possibly two explanations for this according to scientists and psychologists.
The way the brain is formed and its relationship with intelligence is so puzzling even to a lay man like me but one of the most pressing issues facing the field of psychology is that of individual differences in intelligence. People’s IQs are relatively stable over their lifetime, but this does not mean that their intellectual performance does not change. Some people’s IQ grows with age while others it reduces by age. That’s why you find people who were not that intelligent while in high school but grow out of it and end up even becoming presidents of nations or very important people. For instance, there are reports that President Yoweri Museveni was an average student while in school but he has turned out to be the best political strategist Uganda has ever had such that his enemies have found it hard to get him out of power. Former president, Milton Obote, was a school dropout, who actually died without any degree, but his intelligence is rated high among some people especially UPC supporters.
The view that white people are more intelligent than black people is wrongly based on the inheriting view of genes which is simply inconclusive and which has got nothing to do with race. For example, identical twins tend to have similar IQs, even when the twins are brought up in different environments. Moreover, adopted children tend to have IQs that are more similar to those of their biological parents than to those of their adoptive parents. These findings suggest that it is not children’s upbringing but rather their genes that determines their IQ. Attempts at improving the IQ of disadvantaged children through environmental intervention programs have been relatively unsuccessful. So, this argument stresses that IQ has got nothing to do with environment as long as the biological parents have higher IQ; it is usually transferred to their children.
However, it should be stressed that the twins with good genes can either be black or white. There is no gene that has got monopoly over the other because of race. In view of such findings, the development of intelligence is governed by some genetic program and is relatively immune to differences in environmental circumstances, at least within the range that most children experience.
Again when we look at the research understanding of how the brain develops and processes information, Scientists believes that neural connections are critical for the meaningful processing of information. This suggests that different neural connections are required for different abilities. Studies of brain development have shown that these neural connections are relatively undifferentiated when a child is born and that they then become progressively more elaborate over childhood until maturity. There is no difference in the neurons found in either a black child or a white one. We are all the same. Those who look at black kids as less intelligent are doing it out of ignorance.
Nevertheless, there are those who possibly explain a difference in intelligence by looking at the environment. Some Scientists have explained the difference in IQ relating it to the environment. Many studies have shown that neural connections develop and change in response to environmental stimulation. This capacity of the neural connections to adapt has often been referred to as neural plasticity. For example, research has shown that if kittens are reared in a visual environment in which they are exposed only to vertical lines, in later life the only visual stimuli they will be able to recognize are vertical lines. If they are exposed only to spots of light during infancy, they will be able to see only spots of light in later life. These findings suggest that environmental stimulation plays a crucial role in determining the arrangement of a child’s neural connections and, hence, how the child processes information. So it can be argued that most Africans (white and black) are probably less intelligent because of the environment around them but this does not mean that there were born this way. If this is improved, then Africa can have people with higher IQs. It has got nothing to do with race at all. For instance, Obama or Nelson Mandela may be considered intelligent basically because of either of the above explanations but race has got nothing to do with it.
Imagine a child whose brain is very good at adapting neural connections to the environment. He or she would be able to develop the appropriate connections to process many kinds of information more effectively than other children of the same age, and would appear to be bright or gifted. In contrast, consider a child whose brain is unable to adapt to the environment and who is unable to develop the neural connections necessary to understand many things experienced in the environment. That child would remain childlike as a result of poorly developed neural circuits. I don’t know whether the environmental factor mentioned here includes nutritional explanation because how does one explain better fed kids in the western countries who come across as less intelligent than those in impoverished societies. A black child born and bred in Europe may turn out to be less intelligent than one raised in Africa with or without the environmental factor.
To be honest with you, when one looks at this area of research, you come to the conclusion that Black people are as intelligent as white people but other factors explain why they are in the bottom pit of success. It has got nothing to do with specifically their colour. Black people should not allow anyone to make them feel like there are less intelligent than other races.
I also disagree with some people when they say that by the time Congo becomes the present Denmark, Denmark would be on another planet. There is no time frame when it comes to economic development. China was below Denmark in terms of economic development 20 years ago but not anymore. If Africa gets its grips together and probably get rid of the currently less intelligent and selfish African leaders, things will be better in Africa. Africa will be a force to be reckoned with on the international stage if the politics on the continent can be sorted out as soon as possible.
Abbey Kibirige Semuwemba
United Kingdom
