The Telegraph
Egypt army embarrassment after it 'cures' AIDS
A controversial Egyptian army decision to back a "detection" device for HIV and Hepatitis C based on a bomb detector revives a Middle East scam that saw a British man jailed for 10 years last year.
However, international experts say contraptions attached to television aerials have been sold as bomb detectors and drugs detectors around the world. Most recently, a British businessman, James McCormick, was jailed for 10 years last year for selling £50 million worth of fake "ADE651" detectors to Iraq.
"This is a scam that has reared its head for two decades," said Dan Kaszeta, a security consultant who has worked in the - real - explosive detector industry. "The idea is that some very small amount of virus in the blood stream is emitting enough energy to move the aerial, as if some sort of magic waves is coming out of it."
While the country is divided over whether the military regime is brutal and dictatorial, or the saviour of the nation, few wanted to believe that it was abandoning the basic norms of modern science.
Egypt army embarrassment after it 'cures' AIDS
Army general announces discovery of a wand that can cure disease using same technology as fake bomb detector
February 27, 2014
Richard Spencer
A controversial Egyptian army decision to back a "detection" device for HIV and Hepatitis C based on a bomb detector revives a Middle East scam that saw a British man jailed for 10 years last year.
A wand has, according to army doctors, also shown almost miraculous success
rates in diagnosing patients without the need for a blood sample.
However, international experts say contraptions attached to television aerials have been sold as bomb detectors and drugs detectors around the world. Most recently, a British businessman, James McCormick, was jailed for 10 years last year for selling £50 million worth of fake "ADE651" detectors to Iraq.
"This is a scam that has reared its head for two decades," said Dan Kaszeta, a security consultant who has worked in the - real - explosive detector industry. "The idea is that some very small amount of virus in the blood stream is emitting enough energy to move the aerial, as if some sort of magic waves is coming out of it."
While the country is divided over whether the military regime is brutal and dictatorial, or the saviour of the nation, few wanted to believe that it was abandoning the basic norms of modern science.
But when videos of the general's announcement started circulating online,
highlighting the involvement of kebabs made of kofta, or minced meat balls,
they became too difficult to ignore.
When the army at the weekend announced it had found an easy detection method and almost foolproof cure for Aids, as well as hepatitis C, it was met largely with an embarrassed silence.
It was not just that the "cure" had not been submitted to the usual international specialist scrutiny, or a peer-reviewed academic journal, it was that the head of the army medical service making the announcement seemed to think this was not necessary or even desirable.
Egypt had no intention of handing the cure over to anyone else, particularly the "international pharmaceutical mafia", one of his colleagues commented.
“I conquered AIDS with the blessings of my Lord, glory to him, with a rate of 100 per cent," the general, Dr Ibrahim Abdel-Atti, said. He said he had developed a method to break down the virus and feed it back into the body where it would attack it.
“I take AIDS from the patient, and feed the patient on AIDS, I give it to him as a kofta skewer to feed on,” he said. “I take the disease, and I give it to him as food, and this is the top of scientific miracles.”
“And I conquered the ‘C,’” he went on, referring to hepatitis C, a major scourge in Egypt which has the highest rate in the world.
The announcement has an added importance in that Field Marshal Abdulfattah el-Sisi, the defence minister and regime strongman, was present at the announcement, lending it his weight. His apparent willingness to attach his name to a dubious scientific precedent before, as everyone expects, declaring himself as a candidate for the presidency has worried those who fear that he has too little experience of civilian matters to tackle Egypt's myriad social and economic problems.
Among the critics was Dr Essam Heggy, the scientific adviser to the interim president, Adly Mansour, who told a local newspaper the announcement was a "scientific scandal". "An issue this sensitive, in my personal opinion, could hurt the image of the state," he said.
Mr Kaszeta said he feared that as with the bomb detector version, which was useless to prevent a wave of terrorist attacks in Iraq, the "Aids detector" could also cost lives as it offered a false sense of hope and security.
"The depths of human ignorance and craziness are effectively bottomless," he said. "Put things in pseudo-scientific language and come up with a plausible bit of terminology and it will always pass a certain level of scrutiny."
It sounds like a sick joke, but it is in fact the question being most avidly asked in Egypt today: how do you cure Aids with a kebab?
When the army at the weekend announced it had found an easy detection method and almost foolproof cure for Aids, as well as hepatitis C, it was met largely with an embarrassed silence.
It was not just that the "cure" had not been submitted to the usual international specialist scrutiny, or a peer-reviewed academic journal, it was that the head of the army medical service making the announcement seemed to think this was not necessary or even desirable.
Egypt had no intention of handing the cure over to anyone else, particularly the "international pharmaceutical mafia", one of his colleagues commented.
“I conquered AIDS with the blessings of my Lord, glory to him, with a rate of 100 per cent," the general, Dr Ibrahim Abdel-Atti, said. He said he had developed a method to break down the virus and feed it back into the body where it would attack it.
“I take AIDS from the patient, and feed the patient on AIDS, I give it to him as a kofta skewer to feed on,” he said. “I take the disease, and I give it to him as food, and this is the top of scientific miracles.”
“And I conquered the ‘C,’” he went on, referring to hepatitis C, a major scourge in Egypt which has the highest rate in the world.
The announcement has an added importance in that Field Marshal Abdulfattah el-Sisi, the defence minister and regime strongman, was present at the announcement, lending it his weight. His apparent willingness to attach his name to a dubious scientific precedent before, as everyone expects, declaring himself as a candidate for the presidency has worried those who fear that he has too little experience of civilian matters to tackle Egypt's myriad social and economic problems.
Among the critics was Dr Essam Heggy, the scientific adviser to the interim president, Adly Mansour, who told a local newspaper the announcement was a "scientific scandal". "An issue this sensitive, in my personal opinion, could hurt the image of the state," he said.
Mr Kaszeta said he feared that as with the bomb detector version, which was useless to prevent a wave of terrorist attacks in Iraq, the "Aids detector" could also cost lives as it offered a false sense of hope and security.
"The depths of human ignorance and craziness are effectively bottomless," he said. "Put things in pseudo-scientific language and come up with a plausible bit of terminology and it will always pass a certain level of scrutiny."
It sounds like a sick joke, but it is in fact the question being most avidly asked in Egypt today: how do you cure Aids with a kebab?
