African Indigenous Science and Knowledge Systems

Leonard Horowitz, Emerging Viruses, AIDS And Ebola: Nature, Accident OR Intentional? Tetrahedron, Idaho, 2000. Publisher Contact:298-265-2775 (Fax) Edward Hooper/ Bill Hamilton,THE RIVER- A Journey To The Source OF HIV AND AIDS An Illuminating and scholarly text on polio vaccines, designer viruses and the AIDS Holocaust. Note that the IMF continues to insist on the removal of subsidies on health in African countries with callous disregard for the unfolding AIDS pandemic. Water privatization may be good business for International Water Limited (IWL), a subsidiary of BECHTEL but may be a death sentence for the sick and ailing.

For an illuminating insight into Bio- Terrorism in Apartheid South Africa, see:

In the Public Hearings of South Africa’s ” Truth and Reconciliation Commission” 1996-1999, some AIDS- related confessions were made by former supporters of the apartheid regime. Scholars are reflecting on the full implications of these confessions for understanding the AIDS pandemic in South Africa and the former frontline states.

On Contaminated Polio and Meningitis Vaccines, note the following: Dr Haruna Kaita of the Department of Pharmaceuticals, Ahmadu Bello University, Nigeria commented on the contaminants identified in the WHO sponsored Oral Polio Vaccines of February 2004 in the Weekly Trust, Kaduna, Nigeria.

For an interview of Dr. Tijjani Namiye, the Advisor to the Governor of Kano State, Nigeria, on this incident,see Africa Update vol. 1.4.2004 Pfizer to pay ?50m after deaths of Nigerian children in drug trial experiment Out of court settlement in the case that inspired ‘The Constant Gardener’ By Daniel Howden, Africa Correspondent Monday, 6 April 2009, The Independent [UK] ……….. In 1996, the company needed a human trial for what it hoped would be a pharmaceutical “blockbuster”, a broad spectrum antibiotic that could be taken in tablet form. The US-based company sent a team of its doctors into the Nigerian slum city of Kano in the midst of an appaling meningitis epidemic to perform what it calls a “humanitarian mission”. However the accusers claim it was an unlicensed medical trial on critically-ill children. A team of Pfizer doctors reached the Nigerian camp just as the outbreak, which killed at least 11,000 people, was peaking. They set themselves up within metres of a medical station run by the aid group M?decins Sans Fronti?res, which was dispensing proven treatments to ease the epidemic. From the crowd that had gathered at the Kano Infectious Diseases Hospital, 200 sick children were picked. Half were given doses of the experimental Pfizer drug called Trovan and the others were treated with a proven antibiotic from a rival company. Eleven of the children died and many more, it is alleged, later suffered serious side-effects ranging from organ failure to brain damage. But with meningitis, cholera and measles still raging and crowds still queueing at the fence of the camp, the Pfizer team packed up after two weeks and left. That would probably have been an end to the story if it weren’t for Pfizer employee, Juan Walterspiel. About 18 months after the medical trial he wrote a letter to the then chief executive of the company, William Steere, saying that the trial had “violated ethical rules”. Mr Walterspiel was fired a day later for reasons “unrelated” to the letter, insists Pfizer……… “The strategy of big companies when they are dealing with smaller opponents is to stretch the process, to overwhelm us until we are ready to accept whatever they want to offer.” Trovan never became the blockbuster that Pfizer had hoped for and it is no longer in production. The EU has banned the drug and it has been withdrawn from sale in the US……. It appears that Pfizer has finally ended the public relations nightmare with Friday’s settlement. I’m glad we remained the constant gardener and could see this come to fruition………” In November 2002, Nigerian scientist Professor Emitan Abisogun Bababunmi, Professor of Biochemistry secured a US patent for an AIDS- related drug. His drug arrests skeletal muscle degeneration and ‘slim disease’at a relatively cheap cost. (Pan African News Agency)

D. African and African-American Scientists and Inventors

History of Mathematics in Africa (AMUCHMA)

Mathematicians of the African Diaspora/Ancient and Contemporary Africana Mathematicians (Williams)

Mark Dean,Computer Scientist

Mark Dean is an African-American electrical engineer and computer scientist who holds more than 20 US patents, including three of IBM’s original nine personal computer patents. One of the technical and innovative driving forces behind the personal computer, Dean was recently inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, one of only a handful of African- Americans who have been selected for that honor.Today’s desktop computers exist in part because of Dean’s research. One of his earliest inventions was the Industry Standard Architecture ‘bus,’ a user interface that permitted devices such as the keyboard, disk drives, and printers to be connected to the motherboard. He developed a method for displaying color on monitors, helped design several PS/2 subsystems, and tested the first gigahertz CMOS microprocessor. Dean was also instrumental in developing the unique cellular structure of IBM’s signature Blue Gene supercomputer.’ Extract from ScienceDaily.com. July 1,2007.

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Professor Gloria Emeagwali

CHIEF EDITOR, AFRICA UPDATE- A QUARTERLY PUBLICATION ON AFRICAN STUDIES, CCSU