Aids Victims Risk Lives

[seriousstan]

Source: skynews

Thousands of Aids and HIV patients are risking their lives by refusing medication in favour of holy water, Sky News can reveal.

The controversial treatment is offered by a church in Ethiopia which claims to have cured hundreds of believers.

Sky News correspondent Ian Woods reports on the practice doctors in the country say is extremely dangerous:

"It was a scene which reminded me of the holocaust.

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The church itself is more than 100 years old, a simple building painted in bright colours. It sits above a mountain stream, and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church believes the stream is holy water with the power to cure HIV/Aids.



Read more: http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1258762,00.html?f=rss

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My house is more than 100 yrs old, how do I get in on this racket??

[Tyler Durden]

1. Think I'll "take the Cloth."

As long as there are folks like these, we are talking SERIOUS job security.

[Ian David]

2. This is horriffic!

<snip>

It Was Like Holocaust'
Updated: 04:46, Tuesday April 03, 2007

Gete Taddese is 27, and has been attending the church since 2004. She has already lost her two year old child to HIV.

<snip>

Whether or not such devotion has any positive effect, it is likely to cost some people their lives. "We don't allow patients to take medication if they want to receive holy water", he told me. That means they must stop taking the antiretrovirals which prevent the disease taking hold, and prolong the life of those who carry the HIV virus.

At Addis Adaba's leading hospital, Dr Amone Wodoson understands why Orthodox Christians may seek help from their church, but is angry at the suggestion that they must choose between religion and science.

<snip>

There is a long list of rules on who is allowed access to St Mary's Church. Among those banned -- women with wigs because "demons possess such women". Women who are menstruating are also forbidden, along with anyone who has had sex recently. Anyone owning up to such behaviour must wait on a nearby hillside, where priests will come to them and douse them with water.

Here too we found men chained together. Some are forced to submit to the ritual by their friends or relatives. But the vast majority attend willingly. The desperate and the devout, risking their lives in the hope of a miracle.

More:
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1258763,00.html

[nodehopper]

3. more crazies, just like the president of Gambia

[nealmhughes]

4. I am frankly amazed that the Ethopian Orthodox Church's bishops have not put a stop to this.

But, the IOC is an institution which has long been strong on tradition and short on theology, per se.
Many men are nominal clergy, illiterate clergy at that.
There is obviously a serious disconnect between the seminary trained clergy in Addis Abbaba and Egypt and the rural clergy and laity.
Shame that such a historically noble institution has fallen into antiscience and superstition and taboos.

[hedgehog]

5. I think the rhetoric is rather overblown.

We have only fragments of a story here. Some of the men are in chains, but it is unclear who is forcing them to be there. The remainder clearly have gone through some effort to voluntarily submit to the requirements. We may look at them and say that they will die for trusting in the water, but do we know if they will live, otherwise. With access to proper medications and good nutrition and attention to other health problems (tuberculosis, anyone?), their chances would be good. But we don't know if these people are getting that care. It could be that Western medicine is too expensive for them.

The one item missing from the article is any mention of payment for the holy water. Given the overall tone of the article, I'm sure that if the priests charged anything or even accepted donations, that fact would be prominently featured.

There are many in the West who supplement or replace their medications with various forms of alternative medicines. Are they too, victims of a holocaust?

[VegasWolf]

6. "Here have another glass of this water, only 50 cents!! Will cure anything!" nt