Aboriginal Rights

» woorama - check out this horrific article

This article is from the Central News Agency (Taiwan Government news agency), TAIPEI

It shows how the aboriginal people of Taiwan are having their genetic material harvested for pharmaceutical research. I read somewhere else that you can buy Taiwanese aboriginal DNA for $50. Anyway, check out the article, pasted below.

"Aboriginals less likely to contract AIDS, says Pingtung County
doctor"

Taiwan aboriginal people may be less susceptible to AIDS because of
genetic mutation, a Pingtung County medical doctor said yesterday.

Since no ethnic data is recorded in local hospitals for Taiwan HIV
carriers and AIDS patients, Dr. Lee Yao-chun of the Christian Hospital
said there is no way to find out how many infected people in Taiwan are
aboriginal. But death records indicate no aboriginal is recorded as
having died of AIDS, Lee said

More aborigines work in the sex trade than do Han Chinese, so they
should have a higher risk of exposure to the virus, he said. But they
actually have much lower susceptibility rate to AIDS than the Han, he
said.

Lee, who provides medical care to aboriginals in Pingtung County said he
believed that the aboriginal genetic makeup, particularly mutations to
their "CCR5", "CCR2", and "SDV-1" genes, makes it more difficult for HIV
to attack
their immune systems. Even if they engage in high risk sexual activity;
they are less likely to become infected, he said.

Lee said his assumption is also based on medical reports abroad which
have shown that lower susceptibility to rheumatoid arthritis is related
to a mutation of the "CCR5" gene

Domestic medical data he said, shows that Taiwan’s aboriginals are more
predisposed to certain afflictions such as tuberculosis than the Han
people. They have much lower rates of rheumatoid arthritis and
ankylosing spondylitis, two diseases related to the immune system, he
said.

Lee said his hospital is cooperatlng with the Kaohsiung Medical College
to establish a genetic data bank of the island’s aboriginal people in
order to prove his belief. He said he hoped to collect data on 40,000
aborigines to prove his hypothesis.

The results, Lee said, will further research into AIDS treatment and the
development of vaccines.

There were about 2,400 HIV carriers around Taiwan as of from June this
year, less than 800 of whom have developed full-blown AIDS.

-- posted by woorama

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