African Traditional Herbal Research Clinic

Volume 5, Issue 12 NEWSLETTER December 2010

OVERPOPULATION / DE-POPULATION
Uganda has Youngest What is the African Traditional
Population Herbal Research Clinic?
We can make you healthy and wise
By Raymond Baguma
Nakato Lewis
20th September, 2010 Blackherbals at the Source of the Nile, UG Ltd.
New Vision
UGANDA has the youngest population in the whole The African Traditional Herbal Research Clinic located
world after Niger, according to the latest Population in Bukoto, Uganda is a modern clinic facility created to
Reference Bureau’s (PRB) 2010 World Population Data establish a model space whereby indigenous herbal
Sheet released in July. practitioners and healers can upgrade and update their
skills through training and certification and respond to
The data sheet ranks Niger the worst, with 50.1% of its
common diseases using African healing methods and
population below 15 years, while Uganda follows
traditions in a modern clinical environment.
closely with 48.7%. In third place is Burkina Faso,
followed by DR Congo, Zambia and Malawi.
Traditional healers are the major health labor resource
Afghanistan, Chad, Somalia and Tanzania are in the top in Africa as a whole. In Uganda, indigenous traditional
ten countries with the youngest populations in the world. healers are the only source of health services for the
majority of the population. An estimated 80% of the
On the other hand, Japan has the oldest population, with
population receives its health education and health care
22.6% of Japanese aged above 65 years. Germany is in
from practitioners of traditional medicine. They are
second place, followed by Italy, Sweden, Greece,
knowledgeable of the culture, the local languages and
Portugal, Bulgaria, Austria, Latvia and Belgium in tenth
local traditions. Our purpose is to raise public
position.
awareness and understanding on the value of African
Other indicators that are exammined include the birth traditional herbal medicine and other healing practices
and death rate, migration rates, population projections, in today’s world.
Continued on page 2
The Clinic is open and operational. Some of the
INSIDE THIS ISSUE services we offer are African herbal medicine,
3 Afrikan Spirituality – Traditions and Customs of Njovu Clan reflexology, acupressure, hot and cold hydrotherapy,
4 Feature – Calculated Optimism body massage, herbal tonics, patient counseling, blood
6 Feature – Radical Population Control and Eugenics pressure checks, urine testing (sugar), and nutritional
8 Feature – Food Crisis is not about a Shortage of Food profiles. We believe in spirit, mind and body. Spiritual
9 Researchers advocate for Biotechnology
counseling upon request.
10 9 Million Children Worldwide died before Age 5
16 Southern Africa Life Expectancy Rising Slightly - UN Visit us also at www.Blackherbals.com
17 Feature – Population Time Bomb: 89M Ugandans by 2037
21 Why Horn of Africa is Starving Hours:10:00 am to 6:00 pm Monday thru Friday
23 Food Scarcity: Paradox of Hunger amidst Plenty Saturday by Appointment, Sundays – Closed
26 When Childbirth becomes a Deadly Gamble
28 Feature – Overpopulation / Population Reduction
31 Preventing Postpartum Hemorrhage
33 Placenta: New Source for Harvesting Stem Cells
35 Placenta Traditions
37 African Heritage: African Background of Medical Science
40 Contraceptive Stockouts Threatens Family Planning
48 Black women are more likely to have Abortions than White
49 Polysorbate 80 in Swine Flu Vaccines-Infertility in Humans
50 CDC Falsifies Reports, 3,587 Miscarriages from Vaccine
56 Herb of the Month – Herbal Conceptives and Abortifacients
-1- Traditional African Clinic – December 2010
 Cont’d from page 1 – Uganda has Youngest Population
child deaths, fertility rate, life expectancy, prevalence of
HIV/AIDS, urban populations, contraceptive use,
maternal mortality rate, presence of sanitation facilities
and mobile phone subscriptions.
The report establishes a relationship between the
respective countries’ population structures, to fertility
rates in the named countries. For instance, Niger, which
has the youngest population, also has the highest fertility
rate in the world at 7.4 children per woman. Uganda in
second position also has the second highest fertility rate
in the world at 6.5.
“There are two major trends in world population today,”
said the PRB president, Bill Butz. “On the one hand,
chronically low birth rates in developed countries are
beginning to challenge the health and financial security of
their elderly.
On the other, the developing countries are adding over 80
million to the population every year and the poorest of
those countries are adding 20 million, exacerbating
poverty and threatening the environment.”
While the countries with the highest fertility rates are not
the most populous in the world, the datasheet points out
that countries whose nationals are mainly below 14 years
of age, have a high dependency which burdens
governments, communities and families.
The datasheet notes that the total population of sub-
Saharan Africa stands at 865 people, with young people
making up more than 42% of the total population. Sub-
Saharan Africa consists of all countries of Africa except
the northern African countries of Algeria, Egypt, Libya,
Morocco, Tunisia and Western Sahara.
It also shows that this year, the global population has
risen to 6.9 billion from 6.1 billion 10 years ago, with
high population growth rates recorded in developing
countries.
The developed countries, which have a total population
of 1.2 billion people, are recording ageing populations as
the working age populations dwindle. On the other hand,
Africa’s population is expected to stand at about 2.1
billion by 2050.
However, this projection depends on the decline of the
continental fertility rate in Africa from 5.2 to about 2.5 by
2050 with rising use of family planning methods.
Countries with high youth dependency are advised to
provide high-quality and accessible education and health
services to young people.
“Without these investments, children are less likely to
grow into healthy and productive adults. But the signif-
-2- Traditional African Clinic – December 2010
icant financial costs of meeting children’s health and
educational needs are prohibitive for many developing
countries,” the report notes.
Population growth:
In population projections, the datasheet shows that
Uganda’s population currently stands at 33.8 million
people. With the present population growth rate of about
3.4, by mid-2050 the country’s population will stand at 91.3
million people.
Projections for neighbouring countries show that Kenya’s
population will rise from the estimated 40 million to about
65.2 million people by 2050; and Rwanda’s population will
stand at 28.3 million. Also, Burundi’s population will rise
from the current 8.5 million to 16.8 million and Tanzania
will be at 109.5 million people.
Mobile phone subscription:
The datasheet also shows that Uganda comes third in the
East African region after Kenya and Tanzania with the
highest number of mobile phone subscribers per 100
inhabitants.
In Uganda, for every 100 inhabitants, 27 have a mobile
phone, while for every 100 Tanzanians, 31 people have a
mobile phone. Also, for every 100 Kenyans, 42 have a
mobile phone.
In Burundi, for every 100 Burundians, only 6 have a mobile
phone, while for every 100 Rwandans, 14 have a mobile
phone.
The East African Community member states score high in
mobile phone subscription compared to Ethiopia, where out
of every 100 Ethiopians, only two have mobile phones.
But in the United Arab Emirates, for every 100 nationals,
209 have a mobile phone.
Sanitation:
About 69% of people in sub-Saharan Africa do not use
improved sanitation facilities such as latrines and flush
toilets. The situation varies depending on location, with
rural areas worst off. However, the use of improved
sanitation is particularly low in some urban environments
as well.
In sub-Saharan Africa, only 44% of urban residents use
improved sanitation. In Uganda, the report cites, only 38%
of the urban population uses improved sanitation facilities.
http://www.newvison.co.ug/D/8/12/732624
☻☻☻☻☻☻
 AFRIKAN SPIRITUALITY
Traditions and Customs of the
Njovu Clan
Background
The Njovu Clan is one of the 56 recognised clans of
Buganda. Therefore, its traditions, customs and norms are not
different from those of other clans. They are part and parcel
of the culture and heritage of the Baganda people. The Clan
has no culture peculiar to itself.
It must be pointed out that these traditions and customs exist
in a traditional religious environment. They have been handed
down from generation to generation for centuries, and they
have become part and parcel of people’s lives. For this
reason, the Baganda have been described as being notoriously
religious.
The traditional religion of the Baganda is the religious system
which the Baganda forefathers developed in response to their
life’s situations. This religion, up to a point, gave the
Baganda satisfactory answers to their problems, especially
those concerned with birth, marriage, death, the hereafter,
misfortune, suffering, sickness, and so on. It also quenched
their religious thirst, and helped them to find a meaningful
interpretation and understanding of the world in which they
lived.
The religion of the Baganda is reflected in their rituals,
practices, ceremonies and festivals, shrines, sacred places and
religious objects, art and symbols, names of people and
places, beliefs and customs, proverbs, riddles, myths and
legends, values and morals, as well the people who conduct
traditional religious matters. This is what makes the Baganda
notoriously religious. All aspects of the lives of the Baganda
therefore are influenced by traditional religion, and
everything they do, whether knowingly or unknowingly, has
a religious connotation.
The Baganda believed and still believe in the existence of a
supernatural force that makes things happen without
necessarily man’s involvement. This invisible force is what
makes the Muganda to be religious. This concept of religion
has been with man since the time of creation. The traditional
religion of the Baganda is the product of the thinking and
experiences of our fathers. It is an essential part of the way of
life of the Baganda people. Its influence covers all aspects of
life, from long before the Muganda is born, when he/she is
still in the loins of his/her parents, when he/she exists as a
living human being and even after his/her death.
It should also be noted that certain changes brought about by
--------------------------
Managing Editor: Nakato Lewis
PUBLISHER: KIWANUKA LEWIS
Published monthly and freely by BHSN for the ATHR Clinic
-3- Traditional African Clinic – December 2010
The traditional shrine as a symbol of our cultural history
external religions, mainly Christianity and Islam,
have impacted upon the traditions and customs of
the Baganda and therefore their traditional religion.
External religions have made great influence upon
the Baganda through their faiths, their teachings,
their ideals, and their schools and hospitals which
have accompanied the Christian Gospel and Muslim
Dawa.
It must be pointed out, however, that the coming of
universal religions found the Baganda with no
religious vacuum since they had their own
indigenous religion; and that despite the spread of
universal religions and the abuses that were levelled
against African traditions, the Baganda have failed
to totally abandon their traditional religious beliefs
because of their significance and usefulness to their
survival. In any case, the beliefs, practices,
ceremonies, and festivals are part and parcel of his
existence. They are part and parcel of their culture;
and are implied in the integrated patterns of human
behaviour that includes thoughts, communications,
actions, customs, beliefs, values and institutions of
social groups.
In addition, modern changes, brought about by
external contact and cultural influences, have
exerted and are still exerting great influence on the
traditions and culture of the Baganda.
Unavoidably, certain aspects of these traditions and
culture have become or are becoming outdated, but
strong values, virtues, beliefs and practices will
survive while weak ones will perish. Many of them
will be changed or transformed to meet the needs of
the changing times.
In the following notes, traditions and customs are
discussed alongside modern changes and
trends. Information on this has been gathered
through research involving:
• A review of literature on the customs and
traditions of the Baganda put out by eminent writers
Continued on page 52
 African Traditional Herbal Research Clinic
Volume 5, Issue 12 NEWSLETTER
FEATURED ARTICLES
Calculated Optimism: Africa's Growing Young
Population, Demographic Dividends, and the African
Renaissance
By Wilson Aiwuyor
August 23, 2010
Africa’s population has exceeded 1 billion, and is
projected to top 2 billion by 2050. In addition to having
the highest population growth rate, Africa is one of the
regions with the highest proportion of young
population. According to United Nations World
Population Prospects: The 2008 Revision, 60% of
Africa’s population is less than 25 years old. Only 5%
of Africa’s population falls within the age range of 60
to 80 years old, compared with, say, Europe whose
figure for the same age group is 26%. Consequently,
while Africa’s population doubles by 2050, Europe’s,
which is currently over 700 million, will shrink to 691
million. What are the economic implications of
Africa’s population dynamic? Is there any correlation
between Africa’s burgeoning young population and the
realization of the African Renaissance – which is the
vision to transform the continent into a prosperous,
stable, and integrated continent?
The purpose of this article is to show that Africa could
reap enormous demographic dividends from its young
and fast growing population if over the next decade
leaders on the continent embrace good governance and
implement adequate social policies targeting
improvement in education, health care, infrastructure,
and women empowerment.
Some analysts have expressed concern over Africa’s
-4- Traditional African Clinic – December 2010
December 2010
population trend, claiming that the continent is
overpopulated. They are, understandably, concerned
about the strains of Africa’s population on the
environment and natural resources. They caution
against the effects of overpopulation on poverty
reduction effort and on the continent’s overall capacity
to sustain its people. But Africa’s population dynamic
must be put in simplified statistical perspective in
relation to other regions of the world in order to answer
questions about sustainability, poverty and
overpopulation.
Is Africa Really Overpopulated?
The 2010 World Population Data Sheet reveals that
Africa has a population density of 34 people per square
kilometer. With a population density of 170 people per
square kilometer, Western Europe is five times more
densely populated than Africa. The European Union, on
the other hand, has a population density of 115 people
per square kilometre, making it more than three times
as densely populated as Africa. Yet, unlike Africa,
neither Western Europe nor the EU bloc is considered
overpopulated in popular discourse.
With a total area of over 30.3 million square
kilometers, Africa has more than enough space to
accommodate the geographical areas of China, India,
US, Western Europe, and Argentina combined – whose
total areas is about 29.9 million square kilometers.
Meanwhile, Africa’s present population is less than half
the 3.6 billion people in China, India, US, Argentina,
and Western Europe combined. In essence, it is
counter-intuitive to regard Africa as overpopulated
when other regions that have more than twice Africa’s
population within a smaller area are not considered
overpopulated.
Africa has only 15% of global population but possesses
Continued on page 5
Continued from page 4 – Calculated Optimism
Between Overpopulation and Sustainability
60% of the world’s uncultivated arable land. The
continent holds 20% of the world’s natural resources.
If Africa’s area alone can accommodate China, India,
US, Western Europe, and Argentina, whose combined
3.6 billion population is more than half the world
population, then the continent should be able to sustain
a population that would be about 2.1 billion in 40
years.
Thus, the focus should be on good governance and
responsible leadership. With good governance and
adequate social policy, Africa can build the capacity to
properly manage its resources, develop its human
capacity, and maintain a sustainable population
growth. There are enormous benefits to be accrued to
the continent if African governments invest heavily in
education, health care, infrastructure development,
youth development and women empowerment. In fact,
education and female empowerment alone can
significantly regulate Africa’s population within
sustainable proportion.
Africa’s Demographic Dividends
Africa’s demographic dividends would be enormous
and transformative when the continent attains political
stability and take due advantage of its booming young
population. Africa’s population dynamic indicates that
the continent, unlike other regions of the world, would
neither face any shortage in domestic labor supply nor
worry about the economic burden of an increasingly
-5- Traditional African Clinic – December 2010
ageing population for the most part of the 21st century. By
2050, Africa’s working-age population, which is currently
54% of the continent’s total population, will climb to 62%.
In contrast, Europe’s working-age will shrinks from 63% in
2010 to 51% in 2050. European economy policy is already
feeling the pinch of an ageing population. One analyst, Tim
Colebatch, observes:
European governments have stared into the future and they
don't like it. They see a dwindling European workforce
struggling to support a rapidly expanding number of
retirees. They see their budget deficits swelling as millions
of elderly people force up spending on pensions, health-
care and nursing homes, while their populations fall and
their tax base shrinks.
Africa will have more than enough workforce to sustain its
economy. Europe (and other regions of the world where
there is an ageing population) will increasingly need
Africa’s surplus labor. In fact, the European Union has
opened immigration job centers in parts of Africa.
Additionally, Africa’s population will serve as a vast
market for domestic production and to support the global
economy. The McKinsey Global Institute forecasts the
spread of Africa’s potential demographic dividend beyond
the continent in its recent publication titled Lions on the
Move: The Progress and Potential of African Economies.
The publication states: “By 2040, it (Africa’s labor force) is
projected to reach 1.1 billion, overtaking China’s and
India’s. If Africa can provide its young people with the
education and skills they need, this large workforce could
account for a significant share of both global consumption
and production.” This is the Africa that is referred to in the
vision for an African Renaissance as enshrined in the
Vision of the African Union (AU); an Africa that would be
“prosperous and peaceful, an Africa driven and managed by
its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in the
international arena.”
The Dividends and the Renaissance
The African Renaissance is an age-long vision that requires
good governance to translate into reality. The concept of
African Renaissance was first used by the Senegalese
scholar Cheikh Anta Diop to refer to an Africa that can
assert itself politically, economically, and culturally. In his
collection of essays, Towards the African Renaissance:
Essays in Culture and Development, Diop cited
fundamental requirements to achieve the renaissance.
Among these requirements were continental integration and
economic viability. In another book, Black Africa: The
Economic and Cultural Basis for a Federated State,
published in 1974, Diop presented an elaborate blueprint
for the achievement of the African renaissance.
Continued on page 10
 African Traditional Herbal Research Clinic
Volume 5, Issue 12 NEWSLETTER
FEATURED ARTICLES
The Radical Population Control and Eugenics Agenda
of the Global Elite
By Admin
July 19, 2009
The vast majority of average Americans never spend
much time thinking about things like "population
control" or "eugenics", but for the ultra-wealthy of the
global elite and for the politicians that serve them,
population control and eugenics are issues of the
highest priority, and in fact it would be difficult to
overstate the sick obsession that these elitists have with
reducing the population of the planet.
Most of the time this sick obsession with population
control does not make headlines, but a couple of recent
news events has brought these issues back to the
forefront once again. The first involved Supreme Court
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
In an absolutely stunning interview with the New York
Times, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
alluded to the fact that abortion is all about getting rid
of certain types of people that the elite do not want to
have around:
"Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was
decided, there was concern about population growth
and particularly growth in populations that we don’t
want to have too many of."
Now in what kind of sick world is it EVER acceptable
to use the phrase "populations that we don't want to
have too many of"?
That has got to be one of the most offensive statements
made by any public figure in recent memory.
Yet the mainstream media has mostly let is pass
without objection.
Fortunately, at least one member of Congress took
notice. Representative Joseph Pitts, a Republican from
Pennsylvania, gave a stirring speech on the floor of the
U.S. House of Representatives denouncing Ginsburg’s
comment.
Unfortunately, Ginsberg's comments are hardly an
isolated case. The reality is that the top levels of
-6- Traditional African Clinic – December 2010
December 2010
government are filled with officials who are obsessed
with population issues.
For example, John P. Holdren, Barack Obama's top
science advisor co-authored a book in 1977 in which he
advocated mass sterilization using the food and water
supply, mandatory bodily implants that would prevent
couples from having children, forced abortions for
American couples trying to have too many children and
a global police force to enforce population control.
Really? Yes, really.
Now keep in mind, this is Barack Obama's number
one science advisor.
Holdren advocated these insane proposals in a 1977
textbook entitled "Ecoscience", which he co-authored
with Paul Ehrlich (who worked in the Bush
administration) and Anne Ehrlich.
When rumors of Holdren's book first began to surface,
they were quickly dismissed by many because it just
seemed so inconceivable that the top science advisor to
the president of the United States would advocate such
bizarre ideas.
However, once one blogger posted pictures of the pages
of Holdren's book up on the Internet, people started to
realize that Holdren actually did write these sick things.
What follows are some of the more shocking quotes
from Holdren's book.
On page 837, the book states that compulsory abortion is
perfectly legal under the Constitution of the United
States:
“Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory
population-control laws, even including laws requiring
compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the
existing Constitution if the population crisis became
sufficiently severe to endanger the society.”
On page 786, it says that single mothers should have
Continued on page 7
Continued from page 6 – Radical Population Control and
Eugenic Agenda of the Global Elite
their babies taken away by the government and that they
could be forced to have abortions if the government
decides that is what is best:
One way to carry out this disapproval might be to insist
that all illegitimate babies be put up “for adoption—
especially those bore to minors, who generally are not
capable of caring properly for a child alone. If a single
mother really wished to keep her baby, she might be
obliged to go “for adoption—especially those born to
minors, who generally are not capable of caring properly
for a child alone. If a single mother really wished to keep
her baby, she might be obliged to go through adoption
proceedings and demonstrate her ability to support and
care for it. Adoption proceedings probably should remain
more difficult for single people than for married couples,
in recognition of the relative difficulty of raising children
alone. It would even be possible to require pregnant
single women to marry or have abortions, perhaps as an
alternative to placement for adoption, depending on the
society.”
On pages 787 and 788, the book advocates the mass
sterilization of humans by putting drugs in the food and
water supply:
“Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a
suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most
proposals for involuntary fertility control. Indeed, this
would pose some very difficult political, legal, and social
questions, to say nothing of the technical problems. No
such sterilant exists today, nor does one appear to be
under development. To be acceptable, such a substance
would have to meet some rather stiff requirements: it
must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses
received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of
fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free
of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have
no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old
people, pets, or livestock.”
On pages 786 and 787, the authors discuss the
involuntary sterilization of women after their second or
third child:
Involuntary fertility control
“A program of sterilizing women after their second or
third child, despite the relatively greater difficulty of the
operation than vasectomy, might be easier to implement
than trying to sterilize men.
The development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that
could be implanted under the skin and removed when
pregnancy is desired opens additional possibilities for
coercive fertility control. The capsule could be implanted
-7- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
at puberty and might be removable, with official permis-
sion, for a limited number of births.”
On page 838, the authors state their belief that there is
nothing wrong or illegal about the government dictating
family size:
“In today’s world, however, the number of children in a
family is a matter of profound public concern. The law
regulates other highly personal matters. For example, no
one may lawfully have more than one spouse at a time.
Why should the law not be able to prevent a person from
having more than two children?”
On pages 942 and 943, the authors call for the creation of
a “planetary regime” that would control the global
economy and enforce population control measures:
Toward a Planetary Regime
“Perhaps those agencies, combined with UNEP and the
United Nations population agencies, might eventually be
developed into a Planetary Regime—sort of an
international superagency for population, resources, and
environment. Such a comprehensive Planetary Regime
could control the development, administration,
conservation, and distribution of all natural resources,
renewable or nonrenewable, at least insofar as
international implications exist. Thus the Regime could
have the power to control pollution not only in the
atmosphere and oceans, but also in such freshwater
bodies as rivers and lakes that cross international
boundaries or that discharge into the oceans. The Regime
might also be a logical central agency for regulating all
international trade, perhaps including assistance from
DCs to LDCs, and including all food on the international
market.”
“The Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for
determining the optimum population for the world and
for each region and for arbitrating various countries’
shares within their regional limits. Control of population
size might remain the responsibility of each government,
but the Regime would have some power to enforce the
agreed limits.”
On page 917, the authors advocate the surrender of
national sovereignty to an armed international police
force:
“If this could be accomplished, security might be
provided by an armed international organization, a global
analogue of a police force. Many people have recognized
this as a goal, but the way to reach it remains obscure in a
world where factionalism seems, if anything, to be
increasing. The first step necessarily involves partial
surrender of sovereignty to an international
organization.”
Continued on page 13
 African Traditional Herbal Research Clinic
Volume 5, Issue 12 NEWSLETTER
FEATURED ARTICLES
The Food Crisis is not about a Shortage of Food
By Jim Goodman
Common Dreams
September 17, 2010
The food crisis of 2008 never really ended, it was
ignored and forgotten. The rich and powerful are well
fed; they had no food crisis, no shortage, so in the
West, it was little more than a short lived sound bite,
tragic but forgettable. To the poor in the developing
world, whose ability to afford food is no better now
than in 2008, the hunger continues.
Hunger can have many contributing factors; natural
disaster, discrimination, war, poor infrastructure. So
why, regardless of the situation, is high tech agriculture
always assumed to be the only the solution? This
premise is put forward and supported by those who
would benefit financially if their "solution" were
implemented. Corporations peddle their high
technology genetically engineered seed and chemical
packages, their genetically altered animals, always with
the "promise" of feeding the world.
Politicians and philanthropists, who may mean well,
jump on the high technology band wagon. Could the
promise of financial support or investment return fuel
their apparent compassion?
The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)
an initiative of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
and the Rockefeller Foundation supposedly works to
achieve a food secure and prosperous Africa. While
these sentiments and goals may be philanthropy at its
best, some of the coalition partners have a different
agenda.
One of the key players in AGRA, Monsanto, hopes to
spread its genetically engineered seed throughout
Africa by promising better yields, drought resistance,
an end to hunger, etc. etc. Could a New Green
Revolution succeed where the original Green
Revolution had failed? Or was the whole concept of a
Green Revolution a pig in a poke to begin with?
Monsanto giving free seed to poor small holder farmers
sounds great, or are they just setting the hook?
-8- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
December 2010
Remember, next year those farmers will have to buy their
seed. Interesting to note that the Gates Foundation
purchased $23.1 million worth of Monsanto stock in the
second quarter of 2010. Do they also see the food crisis in
Africa as a potential to turn a nice profit? Every
corporation has one overriding interest - self-interest, but
surely not charitable foundations?
Food shortages are seldom about a lack of food, there is
plenty of food in the world, the shortages occur because
of the inability to get food where it is needed and the
inability of the hungry to afford it. These two problems
are principally caused by, as Francis Moore Lappe' put it,
a lack of justice. There are also ethical considerations, a
higher value should be placed on people than on
corporate profit, this must be at the forefront, not an
afterthought.
In 2008, there were shortages of food, in some places, for
some people. There was never a shortage of food in 2008
on a global basis, nor is there currently. True, some
countries, in Africa for example, do not have enough
food where it is needed, yet people with money have their
fill no matter where they live. Poverty and inequality
cause hunger.
The current food riots in Mozambique were a result of
increased wheat prices on the world market. The UN
Food and Agriculture organization, (FAO) estimates the
world is on course to the third largest wheat harvest in
history, so increasing wheat prices were not caused by
actual shortages, but rather by speculation on the price of
wheat in the international market.
While millions of people go hungry in India, thousands of
kilos of grain rot in storage. Unable to afford the grain,
the hungry depend on the government to distribute food.
Apparently that's not going so well.
Not everyone living in a poor country goes hungry, those
with money eat. Not everyone living in rich country is
Continued on page 9
Continued from page 8 – The Food Crisis is not about
Shortage of Food
well fed, those without money go hungry. We in the US
are said to have the safest and most abundant food
supply in the world, yet even here, surrounded by an
over abundance of food, there are plenty of hungry
people and their numbers are growing. Do we too have a
food crisis, concurrent with an obesity crisis?
Why is there widespread hunger? Is food a right? Is
profit taking through speculation that drives food prices
out of the reach of the poor a right? Is pushing high
technology agriculture on an entire continent that could
feed itself a (corporate) right?
In developing countries, those with hunger and poor
food distribution, the small farmers, most of whom are
women, have little say in agricultural policy. The
framework of international trade and the rules imposed
by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank on
developing countries, places emphasis on crops for
export, not crops for feeding a hungry population.
Despite what we hope are the best intentions of the Gates
Foundation, a New Green Revolution based on
genetically engineered crops, imported fertilizer and
government imposed agricultural policy will not feed the
world. Women, not Monsanto, feed most of the worlds
population, and the greatest portion of the worlds diet
still relies on crops and farming systems developed and
cultivated by the indigenous for centuries, systems that
still work, systems that offer real promise.
The report of 400 experts from around the world, The
International Assessment of Agricultural Science and
Technology for Development (IAASTD), is ignored by
the proponents of a New Green Revolution, precisely
because it shows that the best hope for ending hunger
lies with local, traditional, farmer controlled agricultural
production, not high tech industrial agriculture.
To feed the world, fair methods of land distribution must
be considered. A fair and just food system depends on
small holder farmers having access to land. The function
of a just farming system is to insure that everyone gets to
eat, industrial agriculture functions to insure those
corporations controlling the system make a profit.
The ultimate cause of hunger is not a lack of Western
agricultural technology, rather hunger results when
people are not allowed to participate in a food system of
their choosing.
Civil wars, structural adjustment policies, inadequate
distribution systems, international commodity
speculation and corporate control of food from seed to
table - these are the causes of hunger, the stimulus for
food crises.
-9- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
If the Gates Foundation is serious about ending hunger in
Africa, they need to read the IAASTD report, not
Monsanto's quarterly profit report. Then they can decide
how their money might best be spent.
Jim Goodman is a dairy farmer and activist from Wonewoc, WI
and a WK Kellogg Food and Society Policy Fellow.
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/215404-The-Food-Crisis-is-
Not-About-a-Shortage-of-Food
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Researchers advocate for
Biotechnology to improve
Food Security in Africa
By LOMINDA AFEDRARU
October 27 2010
The Monitor
To overcome rampant problems of malnutrition and food
insecurity in Africa, today’s farmer should adopt modern
farming tools like conventional breeding and biotechnology
methods, says a team of science scholars from Uganda,
South Africa and Germany in a report entitled GMOs for
African Agriculture, challenges and opportunities which
was published in July this year.
Biotechnology according to the scientists is an extension of
traditional plant breeding where one selects genes from
different crop varieties in order to come up with a new
variety that is resistant to pests and diseases as well as
resistant to climatic conditions such as drought.
The report which was launched in Kampala during the
Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology in Africa
(OFAB) on October 22 comprises contributions from
scientists from the Academy of Science of South Africa
(ASSAf) in partnership with Uganda National Academy of
Sciences (UNAS), the union of German Academies and
Humanities and the Network of African Science
Academies.
According to Professor Patrick Rubaihayo one of the
planning committee members, the committee that
comprised six members had its first meeting in 2009 and
they decided to focus the report on agricultural crops,
especially genetically engineered crops within the context
of Africa for purposes of addressing the issue of food
insecurity which the continent is faced with.
He said members agreed that in order for farmers to
practice sustainable agriculture in the continent, there is
need for them to adapt to modern Biotechnology
mechanism in their crop production.
He said biotechnology has been with us for a long time
Continued on page 20
Continued from page 5 – Calculated Optimism
Similarly, Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first independent
president and champion of Africa’s decolonization
movement, made a compelling case for Africa’s unity
and economic integration geared toward continental
transformation. Meanwhile, earlier in 1963, Dr. Kwame
Nkrumah had proposed in his book, Africa Must Unite,
that a united Africa should integrate and pool its
resources to put an end to economic dependency and
conflicts.
In 1995, Nelson Mandela asserted that Africa was
moving into a “new era of renaissance.” This statement
marked the re-emergence of the vision that was
articulated by Diop and Nkrumah decades earlier. After
Mandela’s reference to the Renaissance in 1995, the
concept gradually became the overarching term for the
vision to bring about a united, stable, peaceful, and
prosperous Africa; an Africa that can improve the
quality of life of its citizens and give the continent a
pride of place in the global community.
The vision of the African Renaissance and the paradox
that Africa is the future of the world are no joke. In
May, French President Sarkozy said it point blank
during the Africa-France Summit that, "Africa is our
future." In July, former British Prime Minister Gordon
Brown buttressed Sarkozy's statement.
"Future growth in the world economy, and future jobs
in the developing world, will depend on harnessing
both the productive potential and the pent-up consumer
demand of this continent," asserted Brown.
Advanced economies in the West and developing
countries in the global south, including China, India,
and Brazil are now seeking new ways to either assert or
re-assert themselves in Africa - a development that
some analysts refer to as a new scramble for Africa's
resources. Despite the scramble for Africa's natural
resources, the continent's greatest asset remains its
human resources anchored on its booming youth
population.
Indeed, the enthronement of good governance and
investment in human resource across Africa would
better position the continent to reap the demographic
dividends and achieve the African Renaissance. Again,
high population growth rate is not Africa’s fundamental
problem. Africa is not overpopulated. African leaders
should be made to govern well and implement adequate
social policies to improve education, health care
delivery, infrastructural development, human capital
development, and the empowerment of African women.
Wilson Idahosa Aiwuyor is a student of International
-10- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
Relations. He is a Public Policy and International Affairs
Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton
University
http://assign-africa.blogspot.com/2010/08/calculated-optimism-
africas-growing.html (Part I)
http://assign-africa.blogspot.com/2010/09/calculated-optimism-
africas-growing.html (Part II)
☻☻☻☻☻☻
9 Million Children Worldwide
died Before Age 5
Rate of under-five mortality dipped slightly from 2006,
UNICEF says
Reuters
September 11, 2008
LONDON - More than 9 million children globally died
before their fifth birthday in 2007, down slightly from
2006, but a huge gap remains between rich and poor
countries, especially in Africa, UNICEF said on Friday.
Efforts to promote breastfeeding, immunizations and anti-
malaria measures have helped cut child deaths to 9.2
million from 9.7 million a year ago and 12.7 million in
1990, the figures from the United Nations Children’s Fund
showed.
“Since 1960, the global under-five mortality rate has
declined more than 60 percent, and the new data shows the
downward trend continues,” UNICEF Executive Director
Ann Veneman said in a statement.
Improvements in Latin America and the Caribbean, Central
and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and in parts
of Asia drove the overall decline, but deaths remain high in
sub-Saharan Africa where one in seven children dies before
age 5.
AIDS is still a major killer of children in sub-Saharan
Africa, though countries such as Eritrea, Malawi,
Mozambique, Niger and Ethiopia have made significant
progress in cutting mortality rates, UNICEF said.
“Sub-Saharan Africa now accounts for almost half of the
9.2 million deaths among children in this age group
annually,” according to the UNICEF report published in the
journal Lancet.
“High levels of fertility...together with high levels of
mortality in children aged less than 5 years have led to an
increase in the absolute number of deaths (in this region).”
Worldwide, the death rate for children under age 5 was 68
per 1,000 live births in 2007, down from the 93 per 1,000 in
1990 and 72 per 1,000 a year ago. Continued on page 11
Continued from page 10 - 9 Million Children Worldwide died
Before Age 5
Sierra Leone had the worst under-five mortality rate in
the world with 262 out of every 1,000 children dying
before their fifth birthday. The rate in industrialized
nations was 6 per 1,000.
A number of countries, including Laos, Bangladesh,
Bolivia and Nepal, have also made good progress toward
meeting global targets to reduce the child mortality rates
by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015, UNICEF said.
“Recent data also indicate encouraging improvements in
many of the basic health interventions, such as early and
exclusive breast feeding, measles immunization, Vitamin
A supplementation, the use of insecticide-treated nets to
prevent malaria, and prevention and treatment of AIDS,”
Veneman said.
“These interventions are expected to result in further
declines in child mortality over the coming years.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26665596/
☻☻☻☻☻☻
U.S. Teen Birth Rates Highest
in Southern States
By Julie Steenhuysen
October 20, 2010
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Birth rates among U.S. teenagers
vary widely by region, with the highest rates clustered in
southern states and the lowest in the Northeast and upper
Midwest, government researchers reported on
Wednesday.
Birth rates fell to 41.5 births per 1,000 U.S. teens in 2008
from 42.5 in 2007, spurred by drops in 14 states. That
followed an increase in 2005-2007, according to the
report from the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics.
The findings reflect differences in access to medically
accurate information about sex, one expert said.
They are important because teen parents are less likely to
pursue higher education, their children are less likely to
be healthy, and they earn less on average than people
who have children later.
Teenage birth rates by state ranged from a low of 25
babies per 1,000 females aged 15-19 in Connecticut,
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont to a high
of 60 babies per 1,000 teens in Arkansas, Mississippi,
New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas.
Teen birth rates are typically higher among blacks and
-11- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
Hispanics, with Hispanic teens giving birth at a rate of
nearly three times the rate of whites, and blacks giving birth
at nearly two times the rate of white teens in 2007.
But population differences alone cannot explain the
regional differences in birth rates, the CDC researchers
said.
Education and income, sexual activity and contraceptive
use, and attitudes among teens toward pregnancy and
childbearing are all factors, the CDC researchers said.
Birth rates for white teens in 2007 ranged from 4.3 per
1,000 in the District of Columbia to 54.8 per 1,000 in
Mississippi.
For black teens, birth rates ranged from 17.4 in Hawaii to
95.1 in Wisconsin. And for Hispanic teens, birth rates
ranged from 31.1 in Maine to 188.3 in Alabama.
U.S. states with the lowest teen birth rates include North
Dakota, Minnesota, Maine, New Hampshire, New York
and Connecticut.
"This new CDC report makes it crystal clear that the teen
birthrate is lower in states that provide students with
comprehensive, evidence-based sex education," Leslie
Kantor, National Director of Education, Planned
Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement.
She said the surest way to cut teen pregnancy is to give
young people -- especially blacks and Hispanics --
comprehensive sex education.
The Obama administration's 2010 budget included $155
million in funding for medically accurate information about
sex and eliminated spending for abstinence-only programs
favored by many social conservatives who oppose the
teaching of contraception to teens in U.S. schools. Such
programs received about $1.3 billion in federal funds since
the late 1990s.
Teen birth rates in the United States are higher than in a
number of other developed countries. In Canada the teen
birth rate is 13 per 1,000, one-third the U.S. rate. And in
Germany, the teen birth rate is 10 per 1,000. The report is
available on the CDC's web site.
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Under Five Mortality in Africa by Region, 2007
East Africa – 30% (1.5M)
West Africa – 42% (2.1M)
Central Africa – 18% (0.9M)
Southern Africa – 18% (0.9M)
North Africa – 2% (0.lM)
Total – 6.5M

Women without Kids Up 80
Percent from 30 Years Ago
by Catherine Donaldson-Evans
AOL Health
November 12, 2010
The number of American women without children has
risen to an all-time high of 1 in 5, a jump since the 1970s
when 1 in 10 women ended their childbearing years
without having a baby, according to the Pew Research
Center.
About 1.9 million women aged 40-44—or 18 percent—
were childless [1] in 2008, an 80 percent increase since
1976, when just 580,000—10 percent of those in that age
bracket—had never given birth, the Census Bureau's
Current Population Survey shows.
Childlessness has increased across racial and ethnic
groups and most education levels, but has dropped among
women with advanced degrees in the past decade,
according to the research.
Part of the reason for the rise in the number of childless
women is an overall pattern toward delaying marriage
and having kids, the research showed. Experts say that a
drop in societal pressure to be a parent is also responsible
for the trend, along with an increase in career
opportunities and an improvement in birth control options
and effectiveness.
"People put off getting pregnant [2]," said women's
health expert Dr. Laura Corio, a member of AOL Health's
Medical Advisory Board. "Even when they're married
they're putting off getting pregnant. Then they wake up
one day and they're 40 and they want to have a child. It's
like, hello?"
Explanations for the trend vary, but for some, the reason
behind delaying parenting [3] is a simple joie de vivre.
"They're freer. People are enjoying their lives: they're
traveling, shopping, eating out," Corio told AOL Health.
"Putting a baby into the situation is going to change
everything."
Though the most educated women are still among those
most likely to never give birth, there was a 31 percent
decline in those aged 40-44 with master's, doctoral or
professional degrees who had not had babies between
1994 and 2008, when 24 percent of women in that
category were childless.
The data represents combined statistics from 2006 and
2008 (referred to as 2008 in the study) and from 1992 and
1994 (referred to as 1994).
-12- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
White women remain the most likely not to have had a
child, but the childless rates have grown more quickly for
blacks, Hispanics and Asians over the past decade,
according to the figures.
Never-married women still had the highest incidence of
childlessness, though those rates also have declined over
the past 10 years. By comparison, the childless rates have
increased for those who are married or were at one time
referred to as the "ever-marrieds."
"A lot of women can't find someone, or they're very picky
or very educated," Corio said. "Contraception is also better.
A lot of pregnancies in the past may have been accidents
where they decided to keep the baby. It's also money - they
think, we're not in the financial situation [to have
children]."
Among the women aged 40 to 44 without children, the
number of those who didn't want to have children [4]
equaled the number of those who did but weren't able to
conceive, according to figures from the National Survey of
Family Growth.
In 2003, about 6 percent of women in that age group were
voluntarily childless, 6 percent were involuntarily childless
and 2 percent didn't have children but wanted them in the
future.
Along with the population changes have come shifts in
attitude, with public opinion showing more acceptance of
women without children, Pew Research reported. Most
adults - 59 percent in 2002 - said they disagree with the
statement that people who don't have kids "lead empty
lives," compared to only 39 percent who didn't agree with
the statement in 1988.
Similarly, a 2007 Pew survey showed that 41 percent of
adults believe children are important for a successful
marriage, down from 65 percent who expressed the same
views in 1990.
About 46 percent of people said the trend has no bearing on
society, according to a 2009 Pew survey, but 38 percent
said it was bad for society -- up from 29 percent in 2007.
http://www.yourtango.com/node/87202
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Continued from page 7 – Radical Population Control and
Eugenic Agenda of the Global Elite
It would be easy to dismiss Holdren as an eccentric nut
job, but the truth is that his views are an accurate
representation of what is commonly believed among the
global elite. They are obsessed with the notion that this
planet is massively overpopulated, and that if
strict population control measures are not implemented
quickly it will have catastrophic consequences for the
planet.
Scientists who advocate eugenics and radical population
control are funded and promoted by the global elite. In
fact, prior to becoming Obama's top science advisor,
Holdren was the Teresa and John Heinz Professor of
Environmental Policy at the Kennedy School of
Government at Harvard University.
The truth is that academia is littered with nutjobs such as
this who want to see the vast majority of humanity wiped
out. Another example of this is Professor of Biology at
the University of Texas at Austin Eric R. Pianka.
In an article entitled "What nobody wants to hear, but
everyone needs to know", Pianka makes the following
startling statements:
First, and foremost, we must get out of denial and
recognize that Earth simply cannot support many billions
of people.
This planet might be able to support perhaps as many as
half a billion people who could live a sustainable life in
relative comfort. Human populations must be greatly
diminished, and as quickly as possible to limit further
environmental damage.
I do not bear any ill will toward humanity. However, I am
convinced that the world WOULD clearly be much better
off without so many of us.
So the world "might" be able to support half a billion
people? What about all the rest of us?
Oh yeah, we apparently have to die.
But these nutjob scientists would not have the influence
and positions they do if they were not funded by the
ultra-wealthy global elitists who are also obsessed with
population control.
On May 5th, 2009, Bill Gates, David Rockefeller Jr.,
Warren Buffett, George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, Ted
Turner, Oprah Winfrey and a number of other ultra-
wealthy Americans gathered for a super secret meeting in
Manhattan. Reportedly the goal of the meeting was
to evaluate how their combined wealth could be used to
slow the growth of the world’s population.
-13- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
There was a total news blackout by the American media of
this clandestine gathering. The group reportedly met at the
home of Sir Paul Nurse, a British Nobel prize biochemist
and the president of Rockefeller University. The secret
meeting supposedly so discreet that many of the
billionaires’ aides were only told they were at "security
briefings".
Fortunately, however, some details about the secret meeting
have emerged.
According to one major U.K. newspaper, one anonymous
person who attended the meeting said that "a consensus
emerged that they would back a strategy in which
population growth would be tackled as a potentially
disastrous environmental, social and industrial threat."
The same article included some other incredibly shocking
quotes about the meeting from that same anonymous
source.....
"This is something so nightmarish that everyone in this
group agreed it needs big-brain answers."
"They need to be independent of government agencies,
which are unable to head off the disaster we all see
looming."
So the super-wealthy "big-brains" are going to come up
with the answers to overpopulation and impose those
answers on the rest of us?
How arrogant can they possibly be?
You know all of that money that Bill Gates and Warren
Buffett donated to "charity" some time ago? Well, the
reality is that a whole lot of it is going for population
control programs - especially in the third world.
The reality is that this secret meeting is just another
example of the sick obsession that the global elite has with
population control.
Even in the western world now it seems as though there is a
non-stop program to promote abortion, sterilization, family
size limits, lower birth rates and other even more extreme
population control measures.
In fact, the chair of the U.K. government's Sustainable
Development Commission, Jonathon Porritt, said that
parents who have more than two children are being
“irresponsible” by creating an "unbearable" burden on the
environment.
Porritt also said that curbing population growth through
abortion and contraception is absolutely necessary if the
fight against global warming is going to be won.
And it is the "environmental movement" that is behind
Continued on page 14
Continued from page 13 – Radical Population Control and
Eugenic Agenda of the Global Elite
much of this. It is becoming increasingly popular to
think of humans as a "virus" that are destroying the
planet, and that what we need to do is to radically
reduce the population to bring things back into balance.
For thousands of years, the freedom to marry and
reproduce and to raise a family has been one of the
most cherished and most basic of all human freedoms.
But now all of that is changing. Now you have
governments like China that have implemented a "one
child policy" and you have other governments that are
starting to talk about limits on family sizes.
But even without formal government action, today
there are many, particularly in the Western world, who
are been convinced by government propaganda to
willingly restrict their own reproductive capabilities.
For example, one 27 year old woman named Toni
Vernelli told the Daily Mail why she decided to get
permanently sterilized: "Every person who is born uses
more food, more water, more land, more fossil fuels,
more trees and produces more rubbish, more pollution,
more greenhouse gases, and adds to the problem of
over-population."
Some "environmental activists" have even gone to the
absolute extreme by forming "The Voluntary Human
Extinction Movement" which seeks to reduce the
presence of humanity on earth completely.
Their motto is: “May we live long and die out”.
Doesn't that sound wonderful?
So is what they are saying true?
Is the ballooning population of the planet a huge threat
to the environment?
Do we need to implement strict population control for
the good of humanity?
The truth is that the world has more than enough space
and resources for everyone if the elite were not so
greedy, but instead the elite are pushing the
governments of the world to implement population
control programs.
We have started to see some of these population control
measures begin to pop up in the Western world.....
*Women in the Netherlands who are deemed by the
state to be unfit mothers will be sentenced to take
contraception for a period of two years, according to a
new bill before the Dutch parliament.
-14- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
*In the U.K., one influential think tank says that it is an
"eco-crime" to have too many children and that we really
need to examine the impact our large population is having
on the earth.
*In South America, the government of Peru goes door to
door pressuring women to be sterilized and they are funded
by American tax dollars to do this.
Did you know that American tax dollars are being spent to
sterilize the women of Peru?
The reality is that the desire by the global elite to limit the
population of the earth has been around for centuries.
Between 1798 and 1826, English economist Thomas
Malthus published six editions of his work entitled "Essay
on the Principle of Population", which argued that
population growth inevitably outstrips food production.
The primary argument advanced by Malthus was that the
English working class was poor not because they were
exploited, but rather because there were way too many of
them. Malthus opposed welfare and higher wages because
he believed they would allow the poor to survive and breed,
thus compounding the overpopulation problem and leading
to more poverty. Of course Malthus was completely and
totally wrong about all of this, but nonetheless his theories
gained Many years later, Margaret Sanger, the founder of
Planned Parenthood, vigorously promoted this type of
twisted thinking in the United States. The following is one
of Margaret Sanger's most infamous quotes:
"The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its
infant members is to kill it."
Now keep in mind that this quote came out of the mouth of
the founder of Planned Parenthood.
Unfortunately, the sick viewpoints of Malthus, Sanger and
other population control advocates did not die out. Rather,
they seemed to gain steam as the population of the world
absolutely exploded in the 20th century.
U.S. environmentalist Paul Ehrlich, in his 1968 book
entitled "The Population Bomb", argued for very strict
population control measures, especially in the poorer areas
of the world. He warned that if we did not implement such
measures we would be facing catastrophic problems very
quickly. Of course most of his dire predictions have now
been documented to have been completely wrong, but his
theories continue to wield a great deal of influence to this
day.
Dr. Arne Schiotz, World Wildlife Fund Director of
Conservation, said this in 1984:
"Malthus has been vindicated, reality is finally catching up
with Malthus. The Third World is overpopulated, it’s an
Continued on page 15
Continued from page 14 – Radical Population Control and
Eugenic Agenda of the Global Elite
economic mess, and there’s no way they could get out
of it with this fast-growing population. Our philosophy
is: back to the village."
Unfortunately, the philosophies of Erlich, Schiotz and
other population control advocates have garnered a
substantial following even among powerful members of
the United States government. Just check out the
following shocking quotes from Thomas Ferguson,
who formerly worked in the State Department Office of
Population Affairs.....
“There is a single theme behind all our work–we must
reduce population levels. Either governments do it our
way, through nice clean methods, or they will get the
kinds of mess that we have in El Salvador, or in Iran or
in Beirut. Population is a political problem. Once
population is out of control, it requires authoritarian
government, even fascism, to reduce it…."
“Our program in El Salvador didn’t work. The
infrastructure was not there to support it. There were
just too goddamned many people…. To really reduce
population, quickly, you have to pull all the males into
the fighting and you have to kill significant numbers of
fertile age females…."
“The quickest way to reduce population is through
famine, like in Africa, or through disease like the Black
Death….”
Unfortunately, the quotes above are typical of the
mindset of the global elite. The call for radical
population control has grown louder than we have ever
seen before. College professors are given standing
ovations by their students when they call for a 90
percent reduction in the human population of the
planet. Ted Turner makes the radical statement that, "A
total population of 250-300 million people, a 95%
decline from present levels, would be ideal," and the
global elite applaud him for it. The Georgia
Guidestones which call for us to "maintain humanity
under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature"
are increasingly cited by our leaders as an important,
and perhaps even necessary, goal.
When did it become "a good idea" to wipe out 90 to 95
percent of mankind?
Even Prince Philip, the husband of Queen Elizabeth, is
obsessed with reducing population:
"You cannot keep a bigger flock of sheep than you are
capable of feeding. In other words conservation may
involve culling in order to keep a balance between the
-15- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
relative numbers in each species within any particular
habitat. I realize this is a very touchy subject, but the fact
remains that mankind is part of the living world….
Every new acre brought into cultivation means another
acre denied to wild species."
Are you starting to understand how the global elite sees
us? The truth is that they see us as a "flock" that must be
culled from time to time. How incredibly sick is that?
In fact, Prince Philip, the "Eco-Warrior", also once said
that he would like to come back to earth as a disease
after he died to help reduce the human population.
But Prince Philip is far from alone on this issue. The call
for human depopulation is coming from a myriad of
other sources as well:
John Guillebaud, professor of family planning at
University College London has said this: “The effect on
the planet of having one child less is an order of
magnitude greater than all these other things we might
do, such as switching off lights. An extra child is the
equivalent of a lot of flights across the planet."
He also made this shocking statement: “The greatest
thing anyone in Britain could do to help the future of the
planet would be to have one less child.”
The infamous Club of Rome is certainly clear about who
they think the "enemy" is.....
"In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up
with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming,
water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill….
But in designating them as the enemy, we fall into the
trap of mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers
are caused by human intervention and it is only through
changed attitudes and behavior that they can be
overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself."
–Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution, 1991
Mikhail Gorbachev has also weighed in on his view on
overpopulation. Many were stunned when he made this
shocking statement: "We must speak more clearly about
sexuality, contraception, about abortion, about values
that control population, because the ecological crisis, in
short, is the population crisis. Cut the population by 90%
and there aren't enough people left to do a great deal of
ecological damage."
The truth is that we are getting increasingly closer to the
kind of world where the "useless eaters" that Henry
Kissinger talked about will be "eliminated".
Is this the kind of future that you anticipated for your
children and your grandchildren?
Continued on page 16
Continued from page 15 - Radical Population Control and
Eugenic Agenda of the Global Elite
A world where the human "flock" is regularly "culled"
to please the global elite? Not that it matters that the
world is not even experiencing runaway population
growth.
While the earth's population is indeed growing, the rate
of growth is definitely slowing. The population of the
world grew by 140% between 1950 and 2000.
However, authorities are predicting a rise of only 50%
between 2000 and 2050, and a rise of just 11% in the
50 years beyond that.
In fact, in Russia they are actually starting to pay
people to have children because the population there
has been declining too much. But the global elite have
decided that the earth should only have about 500
million people, and that they are going to have to get
rid of about 90 percent of us.
And one of the truly sad things is that many of you who
will read this article actually agree with the global
elite. Many of you believe that we need sterilization,
family size limits, forced abortion and even more
draconian measures in order to avoid an environmental
catastrophe.
The truth is that you have been brainwashed.
The truth is that you have been lied to.
The truth is that you have bought into a philosophy of
death which completely devalues human life.
But this is what is being taught in universities all over
the United States and Europe. The population control
and eugenics agenda of the global elite is being
propagandized by professors, scientists and government
officials who have bought into this madness.
However, what most people do not realize is that the
global elite not only intend to theorize about population
control and eugenics. They fully intend to radically
reduce the population of the earth in their lifetimes -
whether you like it or not.
http://signsofthelastdays.com/archives/the-radical-
population-control-and-eugenics-agenda-of-the-global-elite
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Southern Africa Life
Expectancy Rising Slightly -
UN
By Patrick Worsnip
-16- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
Reuters
October 20, 2010
* New treatments starting to tell against AIDS - report
* Southern Africa still behind in life expectancy
UNITED NATIONS - A dramatic fall in life expectancy in
southern Africa caused by AIDS in the 1990s appears to
have bottomed out, with new treatments bringing a slight
rise in recent years, a U.N. report said on Wednesday.
But the region remains the only one in the world where life
expectancy is currently less than it was in the early 1990s --
and in the case of women, much less, the report said.
Women form the majority of HIV-positive adults in sub-
Saharan Africa, as well as in North Africa and the Middle
East, said the report, "The World's Women 2010." The
human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) causes AIDS.
In the period 1990-95, life expectancy at birth in southern
Africa -- South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Swaziland and
Lesotho -- was 64 for women and 59 for men. That fell to
51 for women and 49 for men in 2000-05, but rose slightly
in 2005-10 to 52 for women and 51 for men.
In Eastern, Central and Western Africa, where some
countries were also hard-hit by AIDS, life expectancy
increased slowly but steadily over the same period and now
stands at 57 for women and 54 for men.
The report by the U.N. department of economic and social
affairs attributed the modest uptick in southern Africa to the
development and improved availability of medical
treatments for HIV.
Sub-Saharan Africa remains the region worst affected by
HIV, accounting for some two thirds of all people living
with the virus worldwide. But a U.N. report last month said
new infections fell by more than a quarter in 22 countries
between 2001 and 2009.
In South Africa, at least 5.7 million people out of a
population of 50 million are infected with HIV and an
estimated 1,000 people die each day due to AIDS-related
complications. But the country now has the world's largest
program to treat the disease with anti-retroviral drugs
(ARVs), which can prolong the life of those suffering from
the incurable illness. Former President Thabo Mbeki was
criticized for questioning accepted AIDS science and not
making ARVs widely available.
More Men than Women
The latest U.N. report found that women live longer than
men in all regions of the world, typically by about five
years, but are more likely than men to die from
cardiovascular diseases, especially in Europe.
Continued on page 20
 African Traditional Herbal Research Clinic
Volume 5, Issue 12 NEWSLETTER
FEATURED ARTICLES
Population Time Bomb: 89M Ugandans by 2037
By Evelyn Lirri
21 August 2010
Saturday Monitor
In Summary
• Uganda has the world’s 2nd youngest population
• 48.9 per cent under age of 15
• Fertility rate is six children per woman
• Education, healthcare and jobs key to challenges to
Uganda
• One of the highest teenage pregnancies at 25 per cent
• Majority of females marry by age of 24
• Two in three women begin childbearing by age of 19
• At current fertility rate number of UPE pupils will
increase from current 7.5m to 18.4m by 2037.
• This would require a significant rise in the number of
teachers from 152,000 to 459,800 in the same year.
• In developed countries, children under 14 make up
only 17 per cent of the total population and there are
4.1 adults of working age for every child under 14.
The latest Population Reference Bureau report indicates
that Uganda has the world’s second youngest population.
Up to 48.7 per cent of Ugandans are under 15 years of
age. This explosion of young people places the country at
the edge of a demographic challenge. Saturday Monitor's
Evelyn Lirri asks how Uganda will employ and feed
-17- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
December 2010
these numbers.
It’s a time bomb! But one that will take another thirty
years to explode and when it does, Uganda could find
itself unable to feed its population, it will not have
enough schools, hospitals, there will be more squalid
settlements and traffic jam will probably be ten times
worse than what we know of today.
Thousands will be jobless and ultimate chaos could be
the rule other than the exception leading to serious
political mayhem but only if, as a country we do not
control our population growth.
The average age of Uganda’s 31 million people is just 15
years, ranking the country in second position in the world
with the youngest population after Niger, according to the
2010 world data sheet from the Population Reference
Bureau.
But a young population with more consumers than
producers has enormous implications for a developing
country like Uganda, particularly in the area of social
services and the growth of the economy in general.
The PRB data sheet shows that in sub-Saharan Africa,
young people make up more than 42 per cent of the total
population, and there are only 1.3 working-age adults for
every child under 14.
In more developed countries, children under 14 make up
only 17 per cent of the total population, and there are 4.1
adults of working age for every child under 14. As a
result, youth dependency or the number of children
economically dependent on the working-age population is
relatively low.
“In countries such as Uganda, where a woman has on
average more than six children, there is a 1-to-1 ratio of
working-age adults and children under 14. This high
youth dependency burdens governments, communities,
and families as they try to meet the needs of large, young
populations,” the report reveals. Continued on page 18
Continued from page 17 – Population Time Bomb
Demographers' take
Demographers agree that providing for the needs of
young people, particularly education and healthcare
makes more economic sense if it is distributed over a
larger number of working adults, which is the challenge
that Uganda will have to confront as it tries to satisfy the
needs of the bulging numbers.
Mr Charles Zirarema, the acting director at the
Population Secretariat, explains that having more than
half of a country’s population under the age of 18 years
not only stretches the economy, it also makes it highly
dependant.
According to the National Development Plan, the
dependency ratio stands at 110 per cent - meaning that for
every nine workers, there are 10 dependents. The result
of this has been high unemployment coupled with a high
dependence burden, denying the country the potential
contribution of this redundant labour force.
“The danger is that you have a small working group
stretched to service the young largely unproductive group
of people,” said Mr Zirarema. Yet this is not about to
change. If anything, Uganda’s population is increasingly
becoming younger, with the proportion of children under
the age of 18 having increased from 51 per cent in 1969
to 56 per cent when the 2002 National Census was
conducted.
Population boom
The Population Secretariat says this population boom is
likely to eventually overwhelm government. In a report
titled “Uganda: Population Factors and National
Development”, it notes that Uganda’s population has
been growing rapidly from five million in 1948 to 31
million by 2009.
Like the global population that rose from 1.6 billion in
1900 to 6.9 billion in 2010, much of this bulge is a
consequence of high fertility rates and an equally high
unmet need for family planning services.
In Uganda, fertility rate stands at 6.7 per cent among
women of child-bearing age, while contraceptive use is at
a low 23 per cent. Projections from the Population
Secretariat show with continued high fertility, the
population would increase from about 30 million to 50.9
million in 2022 and 88.8 million by 2037.
But in the case of a declining fertility projection, the
population would increase to 62.4 million persons in
2037, meaning there would be nearly 26.6 million fewer
persons. Health experts say one underlying reason for the
high fertility rate is the high teenage pregnancy where
women start child bearing as early as 14 years.
-18- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
Uganda has one of the highest teenage pregnancies in
Africa (25 per cent). Dr Peter Ibembe, the national
programme manager at Reproductive Health Uganda
(RHU), says the majority of young females in Uganda are
married off by the age of 24 and two in three women in the
country begin childbearing by the age of 19.
“Part of the reason for this is that not all young people have
been reached with reproductive health services,” says Dr
Ibembe. Because reproductive health services don’t easily
reach young people, he explains that contraceptive use
among this category of people remains at a low 10 per cent
compared to the national average of 23 per cent. This has
consequently led to a high rate of induced abortion; many
using crude high risk methods and maternal deaths among
young girls under 24 years of age.
While current legislation supports making available
adolescent sexual and reproductive health services,
inadequate enforcement and implementation has led to
many young people being left out of key reproductive
health messages.
The introduction of free primary education in 1997 was
meant to increase the enrolment of girls in school but also
delay marriage which could consequently reduce early
pregnancies. But a high dropout rate-especially among girls
had frustrated the programme.
“This is the reason why we are advocating that young girls
should be allowed to go back to school even after giving
birth because their future will be affected if we allow them
to continue having more children when they are young,”
said Dr Ibembe.
Experts observe social services, housing, jobs and
opportunities have not expanded at the same pace as
population growth.
The Population Secretariat report has projected that if
population continues to grow at its current pace, it will
affect all sustainable development objectives in virtually all
sectors-health, education, agriculture, environment,
economic development and urbanisation.
“A fast growing population only discounts all other gains in
education, health and infrastructure. With a lower growth
rate, we would have a lot more gains,” says Prof. Augustus
Nuwagaba, a development economist at Makerere
University.
The report has projected that if fertility rate continues as it
is the number of pupils in primary school will increase from
the current 7.5 million to 18.4 million by 2037. This would
require a significant rise in the number of teachers from
152,000 to 459,800 in the same year.
Continued on page 19
Continued from page 18 – Population Time Bomb
However if fertility were to drop to 2.2 per woman, the
number of children in primary school would only
increase to a modest 10.3 million by 2037, and this would
require only an additional 253,900 teachers. According to
the report, over the projection period, the cumulative
saving made by having to fewer teachers and children in
school would be Shs230bn.
“Some of the savings could be used to increase
expenditures to achieve and sustain free education,
enhance teacher training and improve classrooms,” the
report notes.
The effect of the high population growth is also being felt
in the health sector. It is projected that the need for health
facilities will increase with the continued rapid
population growth and better health seeking behaviours.
In 2007, there were 3,045 health centres II, III and IV-or
I, for every 9,500 people. If this ratio per person of health
centres continues in the future, with a high fertility rate
the country would need 9320 health centres by 2037. But
with a restrained fertility rate- this figure would be 6,550
health facilities.
Public health costs would also rise with increasing
fertility.
Job pressure
Due to the growing young population as well as a high
fertility rate, population and development experts observe
that Uganda is likely to face an increase in job creation
pressure for the youth over the coming decades.
Unemployment is already a huge challenge in the
country, where officials say almost 400,000 students
graduate from tertiary institutions every year only to
compete for 18,000 government jobs created in the same
period.
Consequently, those who fail to enter the job market end
up in the informal sector or without jobs at all. The NDP
is what the government believes will transform Uganda
from a predominantly peasant society to a middle income
country by 2015.
It shows that out of the 12 million Ugandans in the
working age group, only 6.4 million were actively
working by 2002.
One of the constraints to the performance of the labour
and employment sector, according to the NDP is the
current education and training system which prepares
graduates to be job seekers, other than job creators. Mr
Zirarema says Uganda will need to change the education
system to reflect the needs of the economy, but also
address the growing unemployment.
-19- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
“There is a mismatch between what is learnt in schools
and what the job market offers,” he said. Development
experts like Prof. Nuwagaba agree.
According to him, while the country has a relatively well
educated population; most of this populace is not skilled.
This is in part because the current higher education
training system is more theory based and less focused on
practical, hands-on teaching.
According to Prof. Nuwagaba, many graduates are
missing out on good jobs because the education
curriculum does not place enough emphasis on practical
skills. “Getting a university degree is not a big deal any
more. What the country needs is a person who is able to
earn a living by the skills that they hold but not the
degree,” he says.
He argues that Uganda needs to redesign the teaching
curriculum so that it focuses on the skills needed to
develop its human capital and make it more competitive.
“What we should be seeing are innovative and skilled
graduates who are able to create goods and services, and
not just graduates looking for jobs. Countries like
Malaysia have done this successfully,” he told Daily
Monitor.
With the current high population growth rate of 3.2 per
cent per annum, Prof. Nuwagaba says Uganda will need a
GDP growth rate that is four times the population growth
rate. At the moment, Uganda’s economy is growing at an
annual rate of six percent, meaning that the population is
growing faster than the economy can support.
This means that to sustainably support a huge population,
GDP growth rate should be at least 12.8 per cent by 2037.
“This is likely to be unachievable given that even a
country like China which has the highest GDP growth in
the country at the moment is growing at 10.3 per cent,”
said Prof. Nuwagaba.
While a big population size has generally led to
prosperity in many countries like China, Prof. Nuwagaba
says Uganda’s fast exploding population is a liability.
“Uganda’s population is a poor quality one because it’s
highly dependant, unskilled and doesn’t create demand
and jobs.”
Big labour force
According to him, Uganda will have to ensure that its
labour force is far larger than both its dependant young
population and older population-with the ability to
generate wealth, save and invest. Demographic gift or
dividend is the rise in the rate of economic growth due to
a rising share of working age people in the population.
Continued on page 20
Continued from page 19 – Population Time Bomb
Demographic dividend usually happens when fertility
rate falls and the youth dependency ratio declines. The
drop in fertility rate was one of the key factors that, for
example, helped Thailand and Singapore-which once had
the same GDP per capita as Uganda to become middle
income economies in a single generation.
The government hopes to address challenges of
population and development through its recently
launched NDP and the National Population Policy. The
NDP addresses structural bottlenecks in the economy in
order to accelerate socio-economic transformation for
prosperity like creating employment, raising average per
capita income levels, improving the labour force
distribution and improving Uganda's competitiveness.
The national population policy was also launched in 2008
to address development challenges posed by a rapidly
growing population.
http://www.monitor.co.ug/SpecialReports/-/688342/993704/-
/g1m42s/-/index.html
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Continued from page 16 – Southern Africa Life
Expectancy Rising Slightly - UN
The longest-lived women are to be found in Japan, with
an average life expectancy of 86, and the longest-lived
men in Iceland, where the figure is 80. At the other end of
the scale, life expectancy in Afghanistan and Zimbabwe
is below 45 for both men and women.
The report said there had been a "noticeable recovery" in
longevity in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union,
where life expectancy plummeted following the collapse
of communist rule in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Men
in particular are living longer due to reductions in heart
disease deaths. (Editing by Jim Marshall)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39767433/ns/health/#
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Continued from page 9 - Researchers advocate for
Biotechnology to improve Food Security in Africa
because our great ancestors used mechanisms such as
brewing and processing local beer and now people are
interested in processing food stuffs like meat, fish and
there is artificial insemination in animals for purposes of
coming up with exotic breeds.
To him biotechnology is a tool for fighting poverty
amongst the African population most of whom depend on
agriculture for their livelihood. He invited the African
population to read a poem by an Egyptian scientist which
says, “A country in poverty which is relaxing has no
-20- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
future”. However modern biotechnology involves
manipulation of various genes from various plant species
for purposes of obtaining quality product.
“Over the past 40 years the world’s population has
doubled to six billion people. According to the United
States projection it could go as high as 10.7 billion in
2050 and according to recent United States statistics
about 800 million people in the world are chronically
malnourished and 40 per cent of the world’s children
experience stunted growth, 33 per cent are underweight
and 10 per cent are wasted therefore a need to increased
food production,” Professor Rubaihayo said. He said in
Uganda, malnutrition is a very big problem with the
worst being in Bushenyi district in Western Uganda
which is producing a lot of food that is not properly
utilised.
The report highlights issues of African agriculture being
faced with a lot of challenges ranging from low
productivity to poor nonexistent markets and
infrastructure. It states that there has been a decline in the
production of cereal crops over the past four years which
has been attributed to low input because the farming
system is based on reduced use of fertilizers, herbicides
and insecticides as well as decline in soil fertility. Other
challenges are erratic climate conditions and lack of
government commitment to fund development efforts in
the research area. Therefore biotechnology that offers a
mechanism to increase crop productivity in Africa should
be adopted by farmers so as to contribute towards food
security and poverty eradication.
The scientists state that although biotechnology is
gradually being embraced across the globe, it still faces
much opposition which include; perception and attitude
of the people, the cost effects to conduct research and
above all enactment of regulations and policies to
safeguard the product. Dr Gospel Omanya of the African
Agriculture Technology Foundation (AATF) based in
Nairobi, Kenya said it is important for African continent
to adapt this technology because it helps address the issue
of weeding the farms and value addition in the nutrition
area. He contends that countries like Asia with a huge
population are overcoming the problem by adapting to
this technology.
http://www.monitor.co.ug/Magazines/Farming/-
/689860/1041016/-/2nnc73z/-/index.html
☻☻☻☻☻☻
135 of 1000 Ugandan children die before
celebrating their first birth day and 13.7 per cent
pass on before the fifth birthday according to UNDP
statistics, while 435 mothers die of every 100, 000
giving birth.

Why Horn of Africa is
Starving
June 23 2010
In Summary
Those suffering most from food insecurity are
subsistence farmers, pastoralists and agro-pastoralists
whose livelihoods largely depend on agriculture and
animal production.
With the history of food emergencies in Africa, the
revelation that 40 per cent of the continent’s population
are at the risk of starvation, is a cause of concern. 40 per
cent of Africans suffer starvation, and Uganda is one of
the countries listed whose population is suffering hunger.
The interagency Taskforce on the UN Response to Long-
Term Food Security, Agricultural Development and
Other Related Aspects in Africa that was established by
Kofi Anan in 2001 identified natural hazards, conflict and
population growth as the main underlying causes of food
insecurity.
Between 15 to 20 million people in Africa especially the
pastoralist communities live mainly in arid and semi-arid
low lands. They suffer from droughts where food
production is reducing and many risk losing their assets.
With limited food and water availability, animals produce
less milk, are more prone to diseases and their death
incidence rates increases.
The UN organisation says others factors contributing to
food insecurity are forced displacement, poverty, trans-
boundary diseases, poor health, gender inequalities, weak
infrastructure, poor economies, as well as inadequate
national policies and governance issues, aid failure and
weak knowledge and information systems.
Current situation
According to the Food Security, Integrated Phase
Classification (IPC) map released in April, food security
in Africa is a cause for concern with many areas said to
be in acute food shortage especially Southern Sudan,
Northern Kenya and North eastern Uganda.
The situation is most alarming in Sudan (Darfur) and
Somalia (Central) where populations cannot live without
humanitarian aid. Natural hazards, drought and floods are
the driving forces behind the looming hunger across the
continent, especially because they hit they hit the poorest
(mostly rural) communities the hardest.
Land regime
The population in Africa has more than doubled since
1974 and is continuing to grow rapidly, putting further
-21- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
pressure on scarce natural resources. There is shortage of
arable land as farmers are forced to cultivate intensively
and often cannot replenish the soil.
Land ownership issues and the increasingly limited
access to cultivable land, water and other natural
resources are key to rural populations’ livelihoods, yet,
they have become a raison d’être for population
movements and conflicts.
Conflicts
The long history of conflicts both internal and across
boundaries has disrupted agricultural and livestock
productions and marketing systems, causing mass
displacements of already marginalised populations,
thereby intensifying hunger and putting vulnerable
populations even more at risk of food insecurity.
The tensions are the hotbed for the influx of refugees and
IDPs putting further pressure on already scare resources
accessible to host populations, thereby affecting their
food security situation and potentially initiating
additional tensions.
More than half of the populations in the region survive on
less than a dollar (Shs2,000) per day. With little or no
savings and lack of skills to diversify their sources of
income, the poor people are exposed to more dangers let
alone starvation.
Poor health
Countries in Africa have some of the lowest health
standards in the world. Whilst rural communities in
general have limited access to adequate health services,
those worst served are the nomadic and semi-nomadic
pastoralist communities. Among them, children and
women are the most vulnerable with high children
undernourishment and mortality rates related to
preventable diseases (measles, malaria etc.) and high
level of maternal mortality. There are more than four
million people living with HIV/Aids in the Horn of
Africa alone, according to the 2008 Unaids report. The
organisation projected that by 2010, twice as many
people in rural areas will be infected compared to those in
urban areas.
Gender Inequities
Increasingly, men are migrating to urban areas looking
for labour, leaving women with the burden of taking care
of the family farms. Although women are in charge of
cooking and collecting water for the household, land
rights are often passed on through male relatives. Often
lacking sufficient education, women have limited options
because of food insecurity and poverty. Gender inequities
also often translate into gender based violence, affecting
food security at household and community level.
Continued on page 22
Continued from page 21 - Why Horn of Africa is Starving
Weak infrastructures
Due to the poor conditions or nonexistence of roads,
populations living in remote rural areas have very limited
access to external markets and many farmers and agro-
pastoralists are therefore isolated from the national and
regional economy. Access to safe drinking water is also
insufficient, rural populations in Somalia, Eritrea and
Ethiopia are particularly affected.
Poor economies
Economic growth in Africa has generally been slow and
unequal, widening the gap between the poor majority and
the wealthy.
Pastoralist communities have benefited from the
liberalisation of markets in Africa and are generally better
off than farmers. However, when there is a natural
disaster, they are most vulnerable as they risk losing all
their assets. Little has been done to support pastoralists
systems and initiatives that have been taken have often
deteriorated the situation by increasing livestock numbers
and leading to overgrazing rather than regulating the
systems.
Governance failure
Unstable Government institutions in conflict and post-
conflict countries, over centralisation, corruption and
insufficient political commitment to address food
insecurity; are factors to food insecurity but also
represent considerable obstacles for donors and the
international community to provide effective emergency
relief and sustainable basis for economic growth.
Financial crisis
The dramatic rise of global food prices in early 2008
rapidly followed by the global financial crisis and
economic recession had the most drastic consequences on
the global food and nutrition in decades. Their overlap
caused socio-economic, environmental and security
related issues worldwide. Countries in Africa affected by
the 2006 drought had no time to recover before the
soaring food prices and a drought crisis that hit them once
more in 2009. The most devastating effects of these two
crises were felt in the agricultural sector and amongst the
urban poor and the food insecure. Poor households saw
their coping mechanisms strained to their limits and
hunger and undernourishment incidences increased
dramatically in the region. Whilst food prices have
decreased overall in the region, they are still above the
five year average and are likely to remain volatile for
some time, putting further pressure on the most
vulnerable as remittances are decreasing and both formal
and informal economies at local and regional levels are
affected.
-22- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
Climate change
Climate change threatens to further exacerbate food
insecurity in Africa. Crop yields in dry, tropical and
semitropical regions risk to decrease due to global
warming. Extreme climate events such as droughts,
flooding and heat stress are increasing both in frequency
and gravity; which affects food production, stability and
availability, especially as their combination and
recurrence set the right conditions for human, crop,
livestock pests and diseases to spread. Increased
incidence of water born diseases in flood-prone areas,
and new diseases will increase human health risks.
Access to safe drinking water is also likely to become
more scarce.
The resilience of smallholder and subsistence farmers
will be challenged, which may lead to further
environmental degradation, further population
movements and increasingly to resource-based conflicts.
Unless adequate action is taken, it is predicted that the
food security and nutrition situation will negatively
affected Sub- Saharan Africa.
http://www.monitor.co.ug/Magazines/Farming/-
/689860/944062/-/view/printVersion/-/oy92nq/-/index.html
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Climate Change threatens
Food Security in Africa
By ZAHRA ABIGABA
November 3, 2010
The success in addressing challenges of climate change to
agriculture and food security in Africa will require a
comprehensive approach of technical, institutional and
financial innovations, a survey report has shown.
The move is to ensure that both adaptation and mitigation
strategies are consistent with efforts to safeguard food
security, maintain ecosystem services, provide carbon
sequestration and reduce emissions. Agriculture in Africa
according to the report is likely to be severely impacted
by climate change and cannot continue in the present
unsustainable way.
“The agricultural sector needs reform to attain much
greater harmony with the natural and human
environment, this is in tune with the principle of a green
economy and the ongoing comprehensive Africa
agricultural development programme (CAADP) reforms
process,” reads part of the report titled, Climate change,
agriculture and food security.
Speaking during its launch Ms Rhoda Peace Tumusiime,
Continued on page 23
Continued from page 22–Climate Change threatens Food
Security in Africa
the Commissioner of African Union for Rural Economy
and Agriculture asked leaders to consider how Africa can
benefit from carbon credit instruments like the Clean
Development Mechanism.
She said that two per cent of the total projects come from
Africa comprising sustainable land management that has
the potential to mitigate climate change and strengthen
the resilience to its impacts and economic growth food
security and environmental health.
Ms Tumusiime said “The conference resolutions would
be part of the efforts to advance Africa’s position on
Climate Change and to make sure that Africa benefits
from such discussions thereby keeping its initial position
on ensuring transparency in discussions and putting
agricultural aspects on the discussion table.”
The report says while agriculture is critically important to
Africa, it often lacks priority and funding. The Ugandan
government has since increased its budgetary allocation
to the Agriculture Ministry in the 2010/2011 financial
year to Shs310b, from Shs223b in 2008/2009.
The 2008 International Assessment of Agriculture
concluded that unchecked climate change will make it
increasingly difficult to feed a growing population, and
before the end of the century, the world will not be able
to support the present population without radical change.
It reported that Africa’s population is projected to double
by 2050 to about Shs2b. “More than 60 per cent of global
population growth between 2008 and 2010 will be in
Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Climate change therefore
represents a serious external shock which could challenge
the future food security of many millions of Africans,” it
adds.
“In fact, a warming of 1 to 2° celsius is expected to
decrease agricultural yields in arid, semi-arid and tropical
regions.
Agro-ecological zones may shift in ways difficult to
predict: some traditional practices will become less
relevant and more on-farm research and extension
support will become necessary,” says the report adding
that the drying of the Sahel is one example of a change
that has already been observed with negative
consequences for traditional pastoral livelihoods.
http://www.monitor.co.ug/Magazines/Farming/-
/689860/1045486/-/view/printVersion/-/t80dyl/-/index.html
☻☻☻☻☻☻
-23- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
FOOD SCARCITY: Paradox
of Hunger amidst Plenty
Alfred Tumushabe
November 10, 2010
Daily Monitor
Ankole sub region on the outside is a place flowing
with milk and honey. But children here are at risk of
malnourishment because most of the food is not grown
to feed homesteads but for sale.
Such children in Isingiro are at risk of suffering from
malnutrition while the area is steaming with abundant foods
because their parents sell almost all their pro-duce leaving
little or nothing to eat in their homes. Photo by Alfred
Tumushabe
A three-year old child resting on its mother’s lap is
being observed by dietitians at Natasha Child
Nutritional Centre at Mbarara Regional Referral
Hospital. Mark Natamba is scaly skinny and visibly
underweight. Dr Francis Oriokot of the Department of
Paediatrics and Child Health at the hospital says the
centre receives many listless children like Natamba.
He says children are affected first by diseases like
malaria because of underfeeding. “There is poor
feeding in homes in this region. So when children catch
diseases they weaken so fast,” he says. The doctor says
up to 50 per cent of children in the Southwest are
malnourished. This information is corroborated by the
2006 Uganda Demographic Health Survey (UDHS)
report.
“…Regional variation in nutritional status of children is
substantial, with stunting being the highest in
Southwest (50 per cent) and lowest in Kampala (22 per
cent),” the report says.
This is far above the 15 per cent national malnutrition
prevalence. Dr Kaguna Amoti, the District Health
Continued on page 24
Continued from page 23 –Food Scarcity
Officer of Mbarara District says 38 to 40 per cent of the
children below five years in the district are chronically
malnourished and stunted due to poor feeding.
Ironically, the poor feeding occurs highly in a region
endowed with abundant foods, presenting a case of
“paradox of poverty amidst plenty.” Mbarara, Isingiro,
Bushenyi, Ntungamo, Ibanda and Kiruhura have
compelling food produce varieties. Gardens, plantations
and markets are bursting with mounds of matooke, fruits,
cabbages, Irish potatoes and carrots courtesy of good
climate, soils and hard work. The region is also the bread
basket for milk, beef and poultry farms which all provide
good sources of foods necessary for body building and
energy giving foods.
What is the cause of malnutrition then?
Dr Kaguna believes that the cause of malnutrition in the
region is partly due to parents’ and children caretakers’
lack of knowledge on feeding.
“We have come to realise that children don’t take milk
yet we have it in plenty,” he says. Milk in villages is sold
as cheaply as Shs200, fruits like passion, avocado and
mangoes are abundant in homes and crops like beans and
groundnuts are largely grown in the region, he says.
Dr Kaguna adds that some family heads opt to sell off
these foods to get money to spend on alcohol. He blames
the limited or lack of awareness on government’s failure
to commit enough resources to promoting good nutrition
practices.
Ms Jadress Kayesu from Kabuhaama in Rubindi Sub
County who has been trained to teach her village mates
on sanitation and feeding has since abandoned the task
because she is not facilitated. She says lack of knowledge
on good feeding contributes to malnutrition. “People
don’t know how to feed children though they have a lot
of food,” she says.
From her experience, Ms Kayesu, the 27-year-old senior
two dropout, has found out that people are reluctant to
learn. “Convening people to teach them is not that easy.
They are reluctant to attend because they will not be
given money from the training,” she says.
Ms Beatrice Byarugaba, Mbarara District Coordinator
and acting Naads coordinator too believes malnutrition is
high in the region because what is produced is all sold
without reserving enough for homesteads. “Farmers sell
almost everything they produce. That is why Naads has
been promoting integrated farming where one can have
more than three enterprises. The aim is that you sell part
of the produce and remain with what to eat,” she says.
-24- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
Under integrated farming system, farmers are
encouraged to grow various food and cash crops, fruits
and rare livestock. But this, can in most cases be
practical only with those who have a huge chunk of
land, yet land resource eludes many.
Ms Byarugaba says population pressure in the region
has reduced land for cultivation to the extent that
majority of the people are now dependant on only
matooke, which does not give adequate nutrients. “In
Rubindi, Kagongi, Bugamba (Mbarara) and Nyakitunda
(Isingiro) sub counties, population is very high for the
available land. People just have a small plot where they
grow banana plantations on which they survive, you
can imagine!” she says.
On the other hand she also attributes the poor feeding
to ignorance of best feeding ways and the poor
preparation of foods. “Most people do not know how
children should feed. They don’t know how to balance
the diet. They think if children are well fed when they
eat full plates of matooke,” Ms Byarugaba says.
According to Ms Byarugaba, men share the blame of
poor feeding in homes because they have left the role
of what children should eat to women alone.
Ms Julius Mwesigwa, a resident of Rwanyamahembe
Sub County concurs that people have totally turned
food crops into cash crops.
“People no longer grow coffee and few rear livestock
because of lack of land. They depend on growing and
selling of bananas, millet, beans and groundnuts to
raise money,” he says. He says this wouldn’t be a
problem if families were eating enough of the produced
foods and stored the rest to safeguard against hunger.
“Fresh produce like beans in some homes are not eaten
at all, they are set aside for selling.
It is because of such practices that you find many frail
and stunted children in homes,” says Mweigwa. He
also says villages Saccos and Kafuna (private money
lenders) compel farmers to sell all their produce
because farm inputs are got on credit. “Inputs (money)
are sometimes borrowed, so farmers have to sell the
produce to pay back,” he says.
Unscientific population
What do ordinary people make of good feeding?
According to Dr Oriokot, there is less understanding of
food substance by the population. “The population is
not scientific. They understand things by visibility. For
them the issue is satisfying hunger. They don’t think
about balancing foods. The amount of protein you take
in should be balanced with carbohydrates,” he says.
Continued on page 25
Continued from page 24 – Food Scarcity
He says some people don’t eat the recommended three
meals a day, others eat much of carbohydrates and less of
fats and proteins while others take in much of proteins
and less of carbohydrates.
“Because the ratio is not balancing you end up with that
deficiency. What is crucial are the ratios,” he emphasises.
He says lack of proper feeding by pregnant and
breastfeeding mothers lead to producing of underweight
babies and lack of breast milk. He says babies are
supposed to be exclusively breast fed during the first six
months of life. “Some mothers don’t breastfeed children
enough because they are busy. They copy child feeding
methods which are not appropriate,” he says. Like, Ms
Byarugaba, Dr Oriokot says that some families are too
big without enough land and jobs to sustain themselves.
Solutions
“Unlike in the past today there are not enough resources
devoted to teaching proper nutrition. There is need for
more resources to carryout feeding awareness, otherwise
food is affordable,” says Dr Kaguna. He adds that
households should be dissuaded from selling all food.
Moses Turyaramya, Mbarara District Farmers
Association Programmes Manager adds, “There are not
enough food reservoirs in homes. What is produced is
sold off. The government needs to intervene by teaching
people good feeding practices and ensuring food security.
But now, the entire population is left on its own,” he says.
http://www.monitor.co.ug/Magazines/Farming/-
/689860/1049910/-/view/printVersion/-/iqrn6lz/-/index.html
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Population Pressure poses
Risk to Water Access in
Africa
By Martin Luther Oketch
September 7, 2010
A recent report from the World Bank paints a worrisome
picture that more than one sixth of the world’s population
does not have access to safe drinking water.
The report, which is titled ‘Sustaining Water for All in a
Changing Climate’, cautions that the sustainable
management of water resources has acquired a new
urgency in the face of the global population expected to
reach nine billion by 2050, economic development
spurring demand for more and better food and increased
hydrological variability caused by climate change.
-25- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
“Access to water for producing food will be one of the
important challenges the world will face when 2.3
billion people will be added to the planet by 2050. All
these services put significant pressure on this finite
resource, making its sustainable management critically
important,” says the World Bank report.
The report explains that as the world population is
projected to surpass nine billion people by 2050 and
societies grow wealthier, countries will need to get
more from their agriculture and water use. It adds that
feeding 2.3 billion more people and coping with the
changing dietary demands from a richer population will
require more efficient water use, particularly in
agriculture. With the situation being a reality rather
than an assumption; the World Bank Group’s water
strategy now calls for better information and a more
integrated approach to water management.
The report also indicates that 39 per cent of the world’s
population does not have access to improved basic
sanitation. Taking into consideration that access to safe
water is one of the components of the eight goals of the
United Nations Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs), the World Bank is concerned that if the
current trend continues unchanged, the international
community will miss the MDGs sanitation target for
2015 by almost one billion people. “We can’t properly
tackle global priorities of food security, renewable
energy, adaptation to climate change, public health and
urbanisation unless we manage water better,” said Mr
Julia Bucknall, the water sector manager at the World
Bank. “And to manage water better, we really can’t
sidestep solid hydrological analysis.”
Over the past years, donors have committed more than
$250 million to the Nile Basin Initiative based on East
Africa’s River Nile shared by 10 countries: Burundi,
DR Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Rwanda,
Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda, for capacity building,
project preparation and implementation of pre-
investment activities. The report says: “The Nile Basin
is home to more than 300 million people who rely on
Nile waters for basic needs and economic growth. With
the potential for both conflict and mutual gain, the Nile
remains at the nexus of security and development.”
Regarding the importance of water to the energy sector,
the report points out that leveraging the power of water
to support the transformation of the energy sector will
help to mitigate the effects of greenhouse gas
emissions.
http://www.monitor.co.ug/Business/Business%20Power/-
/688616/1004808/-/view/printVersion/-/ulfht0z/-/index.html
☻☻☻☻☻☻

A New Strategy to reduce
Maternal and Child Deaths
By Evelyn Libbi
September 30 2010
Uganda has developed a new national Millennium
Development Goal acceleration framework which it
hopes can help the country reduce its maternal and child
deaths.
This comes after the latest scorecard report for Uganda
on the MDGs showed that the country will miss out on
the two goals even by the deadline date of 2015. With the
MDG goals set a decade ago, Uganda like several
countries hoped to achieve the global targets including
reducing poverty, increasing school enrolment and
reducing maternal and child deaths by 2015. But with
only five years left, most of the targets seem far from
being met.
Infant mortality rates remain high at 76 deaths per 1,000
live births while under-five mortality rate stands at 137
deaths per 1,000 live births. To achieve the MDG target,
maternal deaths should dramatically reduce from 435 to
131 deaths per 100,000 live births by 2015.
Dr Jotham Musinguzi, the Africa regional director for
Partners in Population and Development said Uganda
needs to invest in health infrastructure including human
resource if it is to significantly cut the number of mothers
who die in child birth or related complications. “Most of
these mothers die in rural areas where they don’t have
access to emergency obstetric care or a skilled health
worker attending to them at the time of delivery,”Dr
Musinguzi said.
In the MDG acceleration framework, government will
focus much of its attention over the next five years on
two of the eight development goals.
The framework spells out a series of practical solutions
which government hopes if implemented would
significantly drive progress including making available
emergency obstetric care, skilled attendance at birth,
family planning and effective antenatal care. But it’s not
only Uganda which has performed poorly in the health
related goals. At the MDG review summit in New York
last week, leaders agreed progress was generally slow in
trying to reduce maternal and child deaths.
The United Nations has now unveiled a $40 billion global
initiative it says can save the lives of close to 16 million
women and children over the next five years. The
initiative known as the Global Strategy for Women’s and
Children’s Health was launched by Mr Ban Ki-Moon, the
-26- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
UN Secretary General during the MDG summit. Mr Ki-
Moon described the strategy as “our best chance for a
multiplier effect on the goals.”
Besides saving the lives of women and children, the
strategy aims at preventing close to 33 million
unwanted pregnancies and protecting 120 million
children from pneumonia. It further seeks to protect 88
million children from stunting. “We know what works
to save women’s and children’s lives, and we know that
women and children are critical to all of the MDGs,”
Mr Ki-Moon said.
At the review conference, leaders agreed that child
mortality has reduced over the past decade but it is not
enough to achieve the 2015 MDG target while maternal
mortality remains unacceptably high, especially in sub
Saharan Africa, Uganda inclusive. “Women and
children play a crucial role in development. Investing in
their health is not only the right thing to do, it also
builds stable, peaceful and productive societies,” he
added.
http://www.monitor.co.ug/Magazines/Health%20&%20Livin
g/-/689846/1020548/-/view/printVersion/-/eaay3dz/-
/index.html
☻☻☻☻☻☻
When Childbirth becomes a
Deadly Gamble
By Evelyn Lirri
August 15, 2010
In Uganda, childbirth can be deadly. With 435 deaths
for every 100,000 births, lack of modern family
planning methods, a poor health care system and
battered infrastructure means every pregnancy is a
gamble.
Ms Margaret Ajok is expecting her sixth child. The 26-
year-old resident of Awere Sub-county in Pader District
had come for antenatal checkup when I met her at
Awere Health Centre. It is her fourth visit since she
became pregnant.
A midwife at the health facility said Ms Ajok’s
pregnancy has so far progressed well and there is no
danger to the child and mother. But Ms Ajok’s
experience of childbirth has not been without incident.
When she was pregnant with her fourth child, she never
attended any antenatal care. “It was very expensive for
me to move from home up to here. I have to walk more
than 10 kilometres to access the health facility,” she
said. And when it was time for her to have the baby, the
journey to the hospital was too long, she decided to
Continued on page 27
Continued from page 26 – When Childbirth becomes a
Deadly Gamble
give birth at home - only with the help of a traditional
birth attendant. It was a still birth While Ms Ajok said
she had given birth to her other four children at the
health facility, the daunting cost and expenses she
needed to travel had forced her to deliver at home.
Slight improvement
According to the Uganda Demographic and Health
Survey 2006, there has only been a slight improvement
in the proportion of mothers who deliver in health
facilities from 38 per cent in 2001 to 41 per cent.
“Now I don’t want to take any risk again. I have
already saved some money for transport when the time
to deliver this baby comes,” she said. A journey from
Ms Ajok’s home to the health facility costs Shs5,000
on a boda boda.
But in a country where more than 10 million people
live on less than a dollar or Shs2,100 a day, being
pregnant can be potentially tragic for women like Ms
Ajok who come from rural areas- and where services
are scarce or expensive.
Pregnancy and childbirth-related complications are the
leading causes of death among women in Uganda,
where for every 100,000 women who get pregnant, 435
or 44 per cent die.
Daily deaths
This translates to an average of 16 deaths everyday.
Most of these deaths result from complications of
unsafe abortion, prolonged or obstructed labour where
the woman’s body is too small for the baby to pass
through the birth canal, massive bleeding, high blood
pressure, malaria and HIV/Aids.
But often the underlying cause of death is the high cost
of maternal care. Maternity care, like all other health
services in Uganda, is supposed to be free but pregnant
women are asked to provide their own delivery items
like gloves, razor blades, cotton wool and birth sheets.
Dr Jotham Musinguzi, the African regional director for
Partners in Population and Development (PPD), said
many of the women are dying from causes easily
preventable with basic medical care.
“Maternal mortality is not purely a health issue. If we
want to get results, we need to have well functioning
facilities in place with health workers. There must be
good roads in order to transport women incase of
emergencies and generally, there should be real
investment in the health sector,” Dr Muzinguzi said.
Without a trained, experienced midwife on hand, wo-
-27- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
men are more likely to die from complications like severe
bleeding and obstructed labour. “If you have a skilled health
worker with a mother during delivery, it will help her to
detect if there is any complication and immediately do
something to save the life of the baby and mother,” said Dr
Hassan Mohtashami, the deputy representative of the UN
Population Fund (UNFPA) in Uganda. “If a mother needs
specialised and sophisticated care by a doctor such as
caesarean and blood transfusion, then there should be a centre
equipped with these facilities where mothers can be referred,”
he added.
This, intervention, according to Dr Mohtashami, has the
potential of saving up to one-third of women who would
otherwise have died. But saving lives of mothers requires
more than just medical intervention.
Sensitisation lacking
Ms Thoraya Obaid, the executive director of UNFPA, told
Sunday Monitor in an interview that the underlying reasons
which make women not access information on reproductive
health issues should also be addressed.
“We see that poor, uneducated young women have the least
information and services, and the highest rates of death or
injury during pregnancy and childbirth,” she said.
She said that poor sexual and reproductive health is a leading
killer in Africa and the consequences are felt every day.
Explaining the task of reducing maternal deaths, Dr
Musinguzi said while leaders have made several
commitments to reduce maternal and child deaths, little effort
has been put to realise the actual results. “If you are to look at
the statistics, we are far from achieving the MDGs on
maternal and child health,” he said.
To achieve the MDGs by 2015, countries must reduce the
number of mothers who die in childbirth by 75 per cent. This
means Uganda will have to significantly reduce this figure to
131 per 100,000 from the current 435 - a figure that already
looks out of reach given the five years left to the MDG
deadline.
Health and development experts say action on maternal and
child health will do well to focus on family planning and
basic care and to ensure women do not have too frequent or
too early pregnancies that increase their risk of death.
But in Uganda contraceptive use among sexually active
women has remained at a low 24 per cent, which is below the
minimum needed to impact on fertility while the unmet need
for family planning is 41 per cent.
“Family planning services enable women not only to plan
their families but also to plan the rest of their lives. If a
woman cannot decide voluntarily on the number and spacing
of her pregnancies, then she cannot decide on anything in her
life,” said Ms Obaid. Continued on page 30
 African Traditional Herbal Research Clinic
Volume 5, Issue 12 NEWSLETTER
FEATURED ARTICLES
Over Population and Population Reduction
By Mama Mawusi Ashshakir
Master Herbalist and Healer
Guardian Director
The Body Temple institute of Herbal Studies
Overpopulation is when the number of people in a
population cannot be permanently maintained without
depleting resources and without degrading the
environment and the people's standard of living. Because
the present word population is rapidly using up resources
around the world, virtually all nations are overpopulated.
This applies even more so to the rich nations. For
example, Americans constitute only five percent of the
world’s total population, but consume 26% of the world’s
energy. Just as much as the population size, we need to
consider the resources consumed by each person, and the
damage done by technologies used to supply them.
U.S. population at the beginning of 2010 was over 308
million! (Extrapolated from U.S. Census data).
• Our population is growing by over 3,200,000
people per year -- that's 365 per hour -- about half from
new births and half from immigration (U.S. Census).
According to a study by David Pimentel, the U.S. can
sustain a population of only 200 million... and that's only
if we reduce our energy consumption by 50%!
• The average American consumes over 25 times
more resources than the average person from a
developing country. That means that a family in a
developing country would have to have 50 children to
have the same environmental impact as an American
family with 2 children!
• The addition of 3.2 million Americans has a
greater resource impact upon the Earth than all of the
millions of people added last year in India and Africa
combined.
Population Control Methods
“When there is an overpopulation of deer – it’s hunting
season.”
-28- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
December 2010
Does Fluoride in our drinking water, Tuskegee syphilis
Experiment, H1N1 sterilizing vaccine or addiction over
processed foods make you feel safe. Well “They Say”
that the main cause of Global warming is
overpopulation, energy waste and consumption and
“They Say” that the world’s population is two to three
times more than the Earth resources are able sustain.
So you do the math………………..Are you convinced
that you are in the cross hairs yet? Let’s do a little
more digging, have you seen the” MAAFA 21”
documentary? This documentary investigated the
eugenics movement, MAAFA 21 uncovered founder
Margret Sanger of The Planned Parenthood abortion
clinics which are mainly located in the African
American communities all over the United States
today. What about Kissinger’s policy to use food as a
weapon for population control and the influx of high
fructose corn syrup, flavorings and preservatives on our
grocery store shelves? Or have you researched the
H1N1 vaccine that was to become mandatory for
pregnant mothers, children and the elderly the most
vulnerable segments of our population? It all seems so
harmless until you research the target populations of
these dastardly deeds. The effects on Africans in
America is a infant mortality rate that is three times that
of White Americans, drug and alcohol addiction (a
weapon of mass destruction) at more than 3 times that
of whites and a more covert but effective weapon
“food” is used to erode our health the tune of 25% of
all the deaths in 2006 due to heart disease (generally
caused by the strategic marketing of processed foods).
According to radio host Alex Jones this population
reduction issue is indiscriminant - but in my healing
practice I see more and more Africans in America
Continued on page 29
Continued from page 28 – Overpopulation and Population
Reduction
suffering from the deadly disease of ignorance and
following the herd of the voluntary “depopulationist”.
Links:
http://www.cosmosmith.com/human_population_crisis.htm
http://www.worldpopulationbalance.org/us_population
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIbuRMVVekg
http://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/templates/browse.aspx?lvl=3&lvl
id=6
Mama Mawusi Ashshakir the Guardian Director of the
Body Temple institute of Herbal studies is a Master
Herbalist and Healer. On her website, The Body Temple
Institute of Wholistic Health and Herbal studies, for right
health, right knowledge and sound community, she
provides herbalist orientation, training and information.
She has agreed to become one of our featured writers.
http://thebodytemple.ning.com/
☻☻☻☻☻☻
UN Worries its Troops
caused Cholera in Haiti
By Jonathan M. Katz
The Associated Press
November 19, 2010
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — It began as a rumor that
farmers saw waste from a U.N. peacekeeping base flow
into a river. Within days of the talk, hundreds
downstream had died from cholera.
The mounting circumstantial evidence that U.N.
peacekeepers from Nepal brought cholera to Haiti was
largely dismissed by U.N. officials. Haitians who asked
about it were called political or paranoid. Foreigners were
accused of playing "the blame game." The World Health
Organization said the question was simply "not a
priority."
But this week, after anti-U.N. riots and inquiries from
health experts, the top U.N. representative in Haiti said he
is taking the allegations very seriously. "It is very
important to know if it came from (the Nepalese base) or
not, and someday I hope we will find out," U.N. envoy
Edmond Mulet told The Associated Press.
The answer would have implications for U.N.
peacekeeping missions around the world, he said. It
would affect the relationship between the U.N. and Haiti:
If its peacekeepers misled, it could lose credibility for
tasks such as helping oversee next week's election. It
could affect the job of U.N. humanitarian workers, who
work separately from the peacekeepers.
-29- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
It would help answer scientific questions: Is the source
still out there? How does this cholera strain spread? Does
it pose a threat to the region, including the southern
United States?
When riots broke out across northern Haiti this week, the
U.N. blamed them on politicians trying to disrupt the
upcoming vote. But observers say the U.N.'s early stance
fanned the flames. "If the U.N. had said from the
beginning, 'We're going to look into this' ... I think that, in
fact, would have been the best way in reducing public
anger," said Brian Concannon, director of the Institute for
Justice & Democracy in Haiti. "The way to contribute to
public anger is to lie."
Brand-new disease in Haiti
Before last month, there had never been a confirmed case
of cholera in Haiti.
In March, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention said cholera was "extremely unlikely to
occur" in Haiti. There were no cholera bacteria there.
Most foreigners were relief workers with good sanitation
who come from countries where cholera is not an issue.
Then it did. Even more surprisingly, it did not first appear
in a major port, an earthquake tent camp or an area where
foreigners are concentrated, but instead along the rural
Artibonite River.
Speculation keeps returning to that river and a base home
to 454 U.N. peacekeepers from Nepal. They are perched
on a babbling waterway called the Boukan Kanni, part of
the Meille River that feeds into the Artibonite.
People living nearby have long complained about the
stink in the back of the base and sewage in the river.
Before the outbreak began they had stopped drinking
from that section of the river, depending instead on a
source farther up the mountain.
The latest Nepalese deployment came in October, after a
summer of cholera outbreaks in Nepal. The changeover at
the base, which guards the area south of the central
plateau town of Mirebalais, was done in three shifts on
Oct. 9, 12 and 16.
The U.N. says none of the peacekeepers showed
symptoms of the disease. But 75 percent of people
infected with cholera never show symptoms but can still
pass on the disease for two weeks — especially in
countries like Nepal where people have developed
immunity. The CDC has said the strain of cholera in Haiti
matches one found most prevalently in South Asia.
"It very much likely did come either with peacekeepers or
other relief personnel," said John Mekalanos, Harvard
Continued on page 56
Continued from page 28 - When Childbirth becomes a Deadly
Gamble
Many women admit they want to space or stop producing
more children than they already have but they do not
have access to contraceptives - especially long term
contraceptive methods because of frequent stock-outs in
public health facilities.
The result has been the high number of unwanted
pregnancies, which have consequently led to a high
number of induced abortions-297,000 every year,
according to a study conducted by the Guttmacher
Institute and Mulago Hospital.
According to the Uganda Demographic and Health
Survey, at least 16 per cent of the estimated 6,000 annual
maternal deaths are due to abortions.
The report reveals that 56 per cent (519,000) of the 1.2
million births that occur in Uganda every year are
unintended.
Averting danger
The report says these births could be averted if all the
women who wanted family planning services had access
to them. Ms Margaret Akello, the in-charge of the Family
Planning Unit at Lira Regional Hospital for instance said
because of stock outs, they have registered a high number
of women with successive unintended pregnancies.
Health experts say more women now prefer the long-term
birth control methods, usually given in a single jab or
fitting because it’s convenient and more effective than the
oral contraceptives which must be taken every day to
prevent pregnancy.
Ms Aidah Edonga, a 35-year-old mother of seven
children for example said she wanted a long term method
but she could not get it at the health facility. This forced
her to resort to a private clinic. But even here, she said
the cost was very high. Part of the problem is that policy
makers are sometimes reluctant to make long term birth
control methods part of the mix of contraceptive method
because of perceived cost barriers.
On the other hand, short term methods are readily
available - even through commercial outlets and
community distribution programme.
At a clinic run by Reproductive Health Uganda in Lira
Town, a senior clinical officer, Mr Geoffrey Lapat, said
contraceptives like Pills cost Shs500 while longer term
birth control methods like inplants go for as high as
Shs20,000.
“When the women come here and find the costs for the
long term methods are high, they just leave without
taking it. The next time you will probably see them again
-30- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
is when they are pregnant,” said Mr Lapat.
Studies show that addressing the unmet need for family
planning in Uganda can potentially avert some 16,877
maternal deaths and more than 1.1 million child deaths by
2015.
Meeting the unmet need for contraceptives can also
potentially reduce maternal deaths by 40 per cent while
unplanned pregnancies and induced abortions would
decline by 84 per cent.
Because of the huge unmet need for family planning,
fertility rates have also remained high with each woman
having on average seven children - some even more over
their reproductive lifetime.
The Guttmacher report shows that when women delay
their next birth or have fewer children, the rate of
population growth declines and the potential to educate,
train, and meet the economic demands of a young
population becomes easier.
“Slower population growth can yield savings on the costs
of providing health, clean water, sanitation, and social
services,” the report reveals.
To address the huge challenge of maternal deaths, health
experts say more investment will be needed in the health
sector. “Leaders will have to make reproductive health a
priority and devote 15 per cent of their budgets to health
as they agreed in Abuja.” “They also need to invest
resources in training doctors, nurses and midwives to
tackle the gap of health workers,” said Ms Obaid.
In Uganda only half of the jobs in the health sector are
currently filled while health budget spending is 9.7 per
cent of the national budget far below the commitment
agreed to in Abuja in 2001.
According to a report by the Population Secretariat, the
body that advises government on population policy
issues, the high population is already having huge
implications on the health sector. It shows that currently
there is one nurse for every 4,000 people while for every
9,500 people, there is one health facility. Ms Obaid said
reducing maternal deaths eventually will require
commitment and funding and a functioning health care
system.
http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/-/688334/976568/-
/view/printVersion/-/a2ddw3z/-/index.html
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Maternal Mortality could be reduced in Africa by giving
Oxytocin IM, after the birth of the placenta. Free to all
mothers. No mother should die giving birth. In Uganda
435 women die per 100,000 live births, most from PPH.
What do you think? Rommel Fox-White, R.N.

Preventing Postpartum
Hemorrhage
Active Management of the Third Stage of Labor - A
Maternal and Neonatal Health Program Best
Practice
November 2001
There are numerous definitions of postpartum
hemorrhage (PPH). The most widely recognized
definition is blood loss after childbirth in excess of 500
mL. Because it is often difficult to accurately measure
blood loss, the true incidence of PPH may be
underestimated by up to 50%.
The majorities of cases of PPH occurs in the immediate
postpartum period (within 24 hours after birth) and are
due to uterine atony, a failure of the uterus to properly
contract after the child is born. As a result, bleeding from
the blood vessels in the uterus is not controlled. Without
immediate and proper medical attention, a woman with
PPH will probably die. Anemic women are particularly
susceptible to such blood loss.
Maternal mortality due to PPH is highest where there is
poor access to skilled providers, transport systems and
emergency services. This is not surprising considering
that a woman will die within two hours, on average, after
the onset of PPH if she does not receive proper treatment
(e.g., appropriate drugs, blood transfusion or surgical
intervention).
Consequences of Postpartum Hemorrhage
Women who survive PPH are likely to suffer from
anemia and other complications. These women often
must receive blood transfusions and are susceptible to the
associated risks of transfusion reactions or infection with
HIV or hepatitis. Bleeding that cannot be controlled using
drugs often requires surgery, including hysterectomy.
Such procedures are costly and painful and may be
emotionally devastating to the woman and her family. In
addition, these procedures carry the risk of infection,
reactions to anesthesia and other complications.
Risk of Postpartum Hemorrhage
Although some factors have been associated with an
increased incidence of uterine atony leading to PPH, two-
thirds of the women who hemorrhage after childbirth
have no identifiable risk factors. Therefore, every woman
must be closely monitored after childbirth for signs of
hemorrhage.
Preventing Postpartum Hemorrhage: Active
Management of the Third Stage of Labor
The third stage of labor is the period of time from the
birth of the child until the placenta is delivered. A series
-31- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
of procedures, conducted during the third stage and
collectively called active management, enhance the
ability of the uterus to contract after the child is born. By
decreasing the amount of time necessary to deliver the
placenta, active management can prevent PPH by
preventing uterine atony. Active management consists of:
• giving a drug (uterotonic), within one minute of birth,
that causes the uterus to contract;
• early clamping and cutting of the umbilical cord; and
• applying controlled traction on the umbilical cord
while applying counter-traction on the uterus.
Following the delivery of the placenta, the uterus is
massaged through the abdomen to ensure that it remains
contracted.
• Uterotonic Drugs - Giving women oxytocin
immediately after childbirth is probably the single
most important intervention used to prevent PPH.
Women given oxytocin lose less blood, resulting in a
decreased incidence of PPH and anemia. A woman
receiving oxytocin delivers her placenta faster and is
less likely to require manual removal of her placenta,
a painful procedure that increases the risk of
infection.
• Timing of Administration - Oxytocin is most
effective when administered within one minute after
the birth of the baby. Waiting to give oxytocin until
after the placenta is delivered increases the woman's
risk of uncontrolled bleeding.
• Oxytocin and Ergometrine - Oxytocin alone and
oxytocin plus ergometrine are generally equally
effective in reducing the incidence of PPH. Giving
oxytocin alone, however, is associated with fewer
side effects (e.g., nausea, vomiting and increased
blood pressure). In addition, ergometrine cannot be
given to women with high blood pressure (a common
problem in pregnancy).
• Misoprostol - Prostaglandins are effective in
controlling hemorrhage but most have the
disadvantages of being more expensive and having
increased side effects (e.g., diarrhea, vomiting and
abdominal pain). One notable exception is
misoprostol, a prostaglandin analogue currently being
investigated as a potential uterotonic drug for use in
active management of the third stage of labor. Studies
to date indicate that misoprostol is effective in
reducing the incidence of PPH without the side
effects associated with other uterotonic drugs.
Furthermore, misoprostol is inexpensive, stable at
Continued on page 32
Continued from page 31 – Preventing Postpartum NUMBER OF MATERNAL DEATHS IN SOME
Hemorrhage
AFRICAN COUNTRIES
room temperature and can be given orally--all of
which are tremendous advantages over currently 13 African Materna Birth Estimated Extrapol-
available uterotonic drugs. Countries l Death rate Population ted
A Few Simple Procedures Save Lives Per 1000 \ (2010) Number
Active management of the third stage of labor can 100,000 Popula in of
substantially decrease the following: Births tion Thousands Maternal
• Length of the third stage of labor (2002) (2008) Deaths*
• Need for additional drugs to treat excessive CAR 1,100 33 4,845 1759
bleeding Malawi: 1,100 42 1,448 669
• Need for a blood transfusion Mozambique 1,100 38 22,062 9222
• Need for surgical intervention Eritrea 1,000 35 5,793 2028
• Incidence of anemia and other problems Guinea- 910 36 10,324 3382
associated with excessive blood loss Bissau
Percentage of Maternal Deaths Due to PPH Chad 830 42 10,543 3675
• Sub-Saharan Africa: 25% Zimbabwe 700 32 11,652 2610
• West Africa: 27% Zambia 650 41 12,057 3213
Cote d'Ivoire 600 33 21,059 4170
• 99% of maternal deaths occur in developing Niger 590 50 15,878 4684
countries
Benin 500 40 9,056 1811
• 2/3 of women with PPH have no identifiable risk
factors Uganda (2010) 48 33,399 6974
• 90% of cases of PPH are due to uterine atony 435
Nigeria** (2005) 37 152,217 61952
Performing just a few simple procedures--giving a 1100
uterotonic drug, clamping and cutting the umbilical
Summary 310,334 106149
cord, applying traction on the umbilical cord while
applying counter-traction on the uterus and United States 8 14 310,783 348
massaging the uterus through the abdomen--has the
potential to prevent more than 130,000 maternal Over 106,000 women of childbearing age will have died in 2010 in
deaths every year. 13 countries in Africa. This averages to 817 per 100,000 births in
a population roughly the size of the United States. Given an
http://www.reproline.jhu.edu/english/6read/6issues/6jtn/v4 approximately equal population of the US and 13 African
/tn110hemor.htm countries, a woman’s chance of dying of childbirth in Africa is
☻☻☻☻☻☻ over 300 times more than in the United States. The U.S. maternal
NUMBER OF MATERNAL DEATHS death rate is 8 per 100,000 births.
IN SOME There are 53 African countries. The population showed is roughly
AFRICAN COUNTRIES only 25% of the total African population. The highest death rate
(2002 figures) shows Nigeria, Central African Republic, Malawi,
SOURCES: Internet Usage Statistics for Africa Mozambique and Eritrea with over 1,000 per 100,000 births. The
(Africa Internet Usage and Population Stats ) highest birth rate is Niger at 50 per 1000/population, followed by
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats1.htm Uganda.
UNICEF (United Nations Children?s Fund). 2002. Direct causes of maternal deaths are bleeding (pre or post),
Official Summary: The State of the World's Children infections/sepsis, hypertensive disorder and prolonged labour
2002. New York: Oxford University Press. account for over 80% of the causes, while unsafe abortion
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_mat_mor- accounts for 13%. Indirect causes: malaria, anaemia, and HIV.
health-maternal-mortality ☻☻☻☻☻☻
*Maternal deaths all causes
**http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/nigeria_statis
tics.html
-32- Traditional African Clinic December 2010

Placenta: New Source for
Harvesting Stem Cells
ScienceDaily (June 23, 2009) — A groundbreaking
study conducted by Children's Hospital & Research
Center Oakland is the first to reveal a new avenue for
harvesting stem cells from a woman's placenta, or more
specifically the discarded placentas of healthy
newborns. The study also finds there are far more stem
cells in placentas than in umbilical cord blood, and they
can be safely extracted for transplantation.
Furthermore, it is highly likely that placental stem cells,
like umbilical cord blood and bone marrow stem cells,
can be used to cure chronic blood-related disorders
such as sickle cell disease, thalassemia, and leukemia.
The study, led by Children's Hospital & Research
Center Oakland scientists Frans Kuypers, PhD, and
Vladimir Serikov, PhD, will be the feature story in the
July 2009 issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine.
The doctors and their team made the discoveries by
harvesting term placentas from healthy women
undergoing elective Cesarean sections. "Yes, the stem
cells are there; yes, they are viable; and yes, we can get
them out," declared Dr. Kuypers.
Stem cells are essentially blank cells that can be
transformed into any type of cell such as a muscle cell,
a brain cell, or a red blood cell. Using stem cells from
umbilical cord blood, Children's Hospital Oakland
physicians have cured more than 100 kids with chronic
blood-related diseases through their sibling donor cord
blood transplantation program, which began in 1997.
However, according to the American Cancer Society,
each year at least 16,000 people with serious blood-
related disorders are not able to receive the bone
marrow or cord blood transplant they need because
they can't find a match.
Dr. Kuypers explained that even when a patient
receives a cord blood transplant, there may not be
enough stem cells in the umbilical cord to successfully
treat their disorder. Placentas, however, contain several
times more stem cells than umbilical cord blood. "The
greater supply of stem cells in placentas will likely
increase the chance that an HLA (human leukocyte
antigen) matched unit of stem cells engrafts, making
stem cell transplants available to more people. The
more stem cells, the bigger the chance of success," said
Dr. Kuypers. Drs. Kuypers and Serikov have also
developed a patent-pending method that will allow
placental stem cells to be safely harvested and made
accessible for transplantation.
-33- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
The process involves freezing placentas in a way that
allows them to later be defrosted and suffused with a
compound that enables the extraction of viable stem cells.
The method will make it possible for companies to
gather, ship and store placentas in a central location.
"We're looking for a partnership with industry to get
placenta-derived stem cells in large quantities to the
clinic," said Dr. Kuypers. He adds that much more
research and grant funding are needed to explore the
maximum potential of this latest discovery. He remains
encouraged. "Someday, we will be able to save a lot more
kids and adults from these horrific blood disorders."
Children's Hospital & Research Center at Oakland (2009, June
23). Placenta: New Source For Harvesting Stem Cells.
ScienceDaily.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090623091119.
htm
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Placenta Removal: A Safer
Method after Caesareans
ScienceDaily (July 18, 2008) — In Caesarean deliveries
the placenta is usually removed by hand or by a technique
known as 'cord traction'. A recent systematic review by
Cochrane Researchers shows that cord traction poses less
risk to the mother than manual removal.
Removal of the placenta in Caesarean births may affect a
woman's chance of complications such as endometritis
(infection of lining of the womb) and post-operative
bleeding. One possible cause of endometritis is that
bacteria on the surgeon's gloves are carried into the
womb during manual removal of the placenta. In cord
traction, the surgeon's hand doesn't enter the womb.
Instead the woman is given oxytocin and external
massage, which detach the placenta and it is then pulled
from the womb by gentle traction on the umbilical cord.
The new study compares the advantages of the two
techniques. Researchers reviewed 15 trials involving a
total of 4,694 women and found that there was an
increased risk of endometritis and high blood loss in
caesareans where the placenta was removed by hand.
Women who had manual removal also stayed in hospital
longer after their operations.
"Although cord traction may take a little bit longer, there
are clear health benefits of this method over manual
removal of the placenta," says lead researcher Rose
Anorlu, a gynaecologist at the College of Medicine of the
University of Lagos in Nigeria.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080715204805.
htm
☻☻☻☻☻☻
 Postpartum Hemorrhage
All midwives worry about postpartum hemorrhage. The
three main keys to avoiding its occurrence are 1) good
nutrition and supplements as needed; 2) knowing the
mother; and 3) not rushing the delivery of the placenta.
The first key to preventing postpartum hemorrhage is
good prenatal nutrition and supplements. Require
mothers keep a five-day diet diary to give early
information about their diet. As soon as possible
recommend changes in their dietary habits if they are
needed.
The second key, knowing the mom, entails making sure
that you have recent blood work for this pregnancy.
Check hemoglobin and hematocrit, of course, but also
platelet count. You want to make sure the mother’s blood
will clot properly after the placenta detaches. This key
also includes knowing the mother’s nutritional status as
discussed above.
The third key to preventing postpartum hemorrhage is to
not rush the delivery of the placenta. Almost all
postpartum hemorrhages, in my opinion, are caused by
being in a hurry to deliver the placenta. In these cases, I
believe hemorrhage is caused by the intervillous spaces
not having a chance to contract and help control the flow
of blood. Also, the over manipulation of the uterus to
facilitate placental delivery can cause lobes to be left on
the uterine wall which result in uneven contraction of the
uterus. These lobes need to be manually removed to
prevent postpartum hemorrhage and infection. This is not
any fun for the mother or the midwife! Many physicians
and a few midwives do not give the placenta time to
deliver on its own. But a policy of hands off, unless there
is due cause, is the most important key to preventing
postpartum hemorrhage. Some bad postpartum bleeds,
which may have been avoided if the practitioner had not
intervened and over-managed the placenta delivery.
Uterine atony is also a major reason for postpartum
hemorrhage. This can be caused from a long labor, or a
precipitous labor, either of which can induce uterine
fatigue or facilitate possible partial separation of the
placenta. Try to anticipate this if she has had either of
these labor patterns. Also, check and ascertain that she
has not displaced her uterus by not emptying her bladder,
either shortly before pushing and/or after delivery of the
baby.
Midwifery Today E-News (Vol. 2 Issue 20 May 19,
2000)
http://www.naturalchildbirth.org/natural/resources/postbirth/po
stbirth16.htm
☻☻☻☻☻☻
-34- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
Continued from page 56 – Some Herbal
Conceptives and Abortifacients
Contraceptive - Grind seeds of Abrus precatorius into
powder. A single dose acts as a long acting contraceptive
lasting up to three menstrual cycles.
Wash whole plant of Abrus precatorius and boil in water
obtained from fermented milled fruits of Zea mays. Take
in small glass cup three times daily before intercourse. To
restore fertility, stop taking the preparation.
Contraceptive and Abortifacient – Momordica
Charantia - The seeds have demonstrated the ability to
induce abortions in rats and mice, and the root has been
documented with a uterine stimulant effect in animals.
The fruit and leaf of bitter melon has demonstrated an in
vivo anti-fertility effect in female animals; in male
animals, it was reported to affect the production of sperm
negatively. Bitter melon traditionally has been used as an
abortive and has been documented with weak uterine
stimulant activity; therefore, it is contraindicated during
pregnancy. This plant has been documented to reduce
fertility in both males and females and should therefore
not be used by those undergoing fertility treatment or
seeking pregnancy. Women in Latin American and the
West Indies use the leaf for menstrual problems to
promote discharge after childbirth. The tea is taken for 9
days after giving birth to clean out and tone up all the
organs involved in the delivery. Cerasee is also used as a
natural method of birth control, by taking two cups each
day after intercourse, for three days. It is said that women
who drink Cerasee daily will not conceive during that
time.
Reference
An Examination of the Usage of Herbal Contraceptives and
Abortifacients in Lagos State, Nigeria, Kadiri Akeem Bablola,
Ethnobotanical Leaflets 13: 140-46. 200.9
A Medicinal Potency of Momordica Charantia, D. Sathish
Kumar, et al, International Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Review and Research, Volume 1, Issue 2, March – April 2010;
Article 018
Rashan Abdul Hakim, Basic Herbs and Healing, 1989
☻☻☻☻☻☻
More Women Die Giving
Birth in Hoima
November 28, 2010
Sunday Vision
Last year alone, 285 women died as a result of birth-
related complications in Hoima Hospital. While women
also died in other regional hospital, the victims from
Hoima (7:1) outnumber those from any other region.
Continued on page 55

Placenta Traditions
For centuries the placenta has received ceremonial
handling by many cultures around the world. In western
medicine the human placenta is usually regarded as
nothing more than human waste.
Revered for its symbolism of life, spirit and
individuality, it is often buried outside. Some people
even promote cooking and eating it as a celebration of
birth and a source of rich nutrients. Here are some
cultural traditions from the different continents:
Africa
The Ibo of Nigeria and Ghana treat the placenta as the
dead twin of the live child and give it full burial rites.
In many African cultures, "zan boku" means "the place
where the placenta is buried." and bury the placenta
under a tree.
The Kikuyu of Kenya place it in an uncultivated field
and cover it with grains and grasses, while other
cultures bury it in the dirt floor of the family's house.
Some African nations swaddle the placenta in blankets
and bury it beneath a tree as a tree symbolizes ongoing
life.
In Mali, it is thought that the placenta can affect the
baby's mood or even make the baby ill. The placenta is
washed, dried, placed in a basket and buried by the
father.
A belief held by many Arabs is the future fertility of a
woman is connected to the disposition of the placenta.
Should something unpleasant happen to it the woman
might be rendered sterile.
Asia
In some cultures such as Vietnam and China the
placenta is viewed as a life-giving force. Therefore, it is
dried and added to certain placenta recipes in order to
increase a person’s energy and vitality.
In Indonesia, the placenta is seen as the baby’s twin or
elder sibling and is perceived as the baby's guardian
throughout life. It is the father’s responsibilities to
clean, wrap, and bury the placenta on the day of the
birth. Filipina mothers are known to bury the placenta
with books, in hopes of a smart child.
In Korea the placenta is often burned and the ashes
kept. During periods of illness the ashen powder is
given in a liquid to help heal the child.
Among the Hmong culture, the word for placenta can
be translated as "jacket," as it's considered an infant's
first and finest clothing. The Hmong bury the placenta
outside as they believe that after death, the soul must
-35- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
journey back through the past until it reaches the burial
place of the placenta and await rebirth.
In Cambodia, the placenta is carefully wrapped in a
banana tree leaf, placed beside the newborn baby for
three days and then buried.
In Thai culture the placenta is often salted and placed in
an earthen jar. On a day deemed auspicious for burying
this clay pot, a site is prepared and the placenta is laid to
rest. The jar is buried under a tree that corresponds to the
symbol of the Asian year of the child's birth and
depending on what month the child was born dictates
which bearing the pot faces.
Europe
The commercial use of "placenta extract" found in some
cosmetics, such as facial cream, is sold in France. In
1994, Britain banned the practice of collecting placentas
in hospitals from unsuspecting mothers, after it was
learned that 360 tons of it were annually being bought
and shipped by French pharmaceutical firms. They used
it to make a protein, albumin, for burns and to make
enzymes to treat rare genetic disorders.
North America
For Navajo Indians, it is customary to bury a child's
placenta within the sacred four corners of the tribe's
reservation as a binder to ancestral land and people. The
Navajos also bury objects with it to signify the profession
they hope the child will pursue.
In Hawaii the placenta is brought home and washed, then
buried following a religious ritual with a tree planted on
it. It is believed this binds the child to his or her
homeland. The “iewe” (placenta) of the newborn child is
sacred and must be handled in a sacred manner in order
to provide for the physical health of the child.
South America
In some regions of South America the placenta is burned
after birth to neutralize it and planted in the ground to
protect it from evil spirits.
The indigenous Bolivian Aymara and Quecha people
believe the placenta has its own spirit. It is to be washed
and buried by the husband in a secret and shady place. If
this ritual is not performed correctly, they believe, the
mother or baby may become very sick or even die.
Oceania
New Zealand Maori gift the Placenta or Whenua as a gift
to Papa Tua Nuku or Mother Earth. In Maori, the word
for land and placenta are the same - whenua, and
illustrates the connection between them and it is usually
planted with a tree on family land.
Continued on page 36
Continued from page 35 – Placenta Traditions
Some Aboriginal tribes bury the placenta either under
the tree where they birthed or under an ant pit for the
green ants. Many believe that when the green ants eat
the placenta no more babies will come or at least not
for a while.
In Samoa the placenta must be totally burned or buried
so it will not be found by evil spirits. Burying or
burning it at home also ensures the child will remain
close to home as it moves through life. If buried under
a fruit tree, the placenta provides nutrition for the tree
that in turn will provide years of nutrition for the child.
http://www.birthtoearth.com/FAQs/Placenta+Traditions.html
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Report: Abortions Fall;
Unsafe Procedures Still
Prevalent
By Audrey Barrick
October 14, 2009
The number of abortions worldwide fell between 1995
and 2003 as contraceptive use increased and more
countries liberalized their abortion laws, according to a
new survey released by a pro-choice nonprofit.
From 45.5 million in 1995, the number of abortions
dropped to 41.6 million in 2003, the Guttmacher
Institute reported Tuesday in "Abortion Worldwide: A
Decade of Uneven Progress."
The institute attributed the fewer abortions to the wide
provision of contraceptive services. Globally, the
proportion of married women practicing contraception
increased from 54 percent in 1990 to 63 percent in
2003. Contraceptive use also increased among
unmarried, sexually active young women in many
developing countries. The unintended pregnancy rate,
meanwhile, declined from 69 per 1,000 women aged
15-44 in 1995 to 55 per 1,000 in 2008.
Sharon Camp, president and CEO of the Guttmacher
Institute, said in a statement that the "progress" made in
increasing contraceptive use is good news. But she
lamented the some 70,000 women who die each year
from the effects of unsafe abortion, mainly in the less
developed countries. While there have been reductions
in levels of safe abortions – from 20 to 15 per 1,000
women aged 15-44 – the number of unsafe abortions
has changed little from 19.9 million to 19.7 million.
"In almost all developed countries, abortion is safe and
-36- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
legal. But in much of the developing world, abortion
remains highly restricted, and unsafe abortion is common
and continues to damage women’s health and threaten
their survival," Camp noted.
Since 1997, 19 countries have reduced restrictions in
their abortions laws and only three countries have
substantially increased legal restrictions. The report
points out that abortion occurs at roughly equal rates in
regions where it is broadly legal and in regions where it is
highly restricted.
The report states, "Restricting abortion by law does not
guarantee a low abortion rate, nor does permitting it on
broad grounds guarantee a high rate. Legal status does,
however, affect the safety of abortion."
The Guttmacher Institute calls for expanded access to
modern contraceptives and to legal abortion, arguing that
there would be "enormous individual and societal
benefits – for women, their families and countries as a
whole."
But Deirdre McQuade, a policy director with the U.S.
Conference of Catholic Bishops' Secretariat for Pro-Life
Activities, told The Associated Press that they need to be
"much more creative in assisting women with supportive
services so they don't need to resort to the unnatural act
of abortion." She also contended that use of artificial
contraception could increase women's health risks and
said they would fare better using natural family planning
methods approved by the church, as reported by AP.
While the Guttmacher Institute makes the case for
contraception and legalized abortion, pro-lifers across the
states have found a different way to reduce the number of
abortions. Participants in the annual 40 Days for Life
campaign have helped save 251 babies from being
aborted in less than a month. Since Sept. 23 they have
stood outside abortion clinics in prayer and with signs
such as "Smile Your Mom Chose Life." They've helped
change the minds of hundreds women who were
considering abortion.
The Guttmacher report was compiled to assess "progress
over the past decade regarding the legality, safety and
accessibility of abortion services worldwide." It offers
profiles on abortion in Asia, Latin America and the
Caribbean, and Africa.
Of the estimated 21.9 million safe abortions carried out in
2003, more than two-thirds (15.8 million) took place in
the less developed world, predominantly in Asia. In
Europe and the United States, 3.9 million and 1.5 million
safe abortions were conducted, respectively.
The report comes as more Americans have shifted from
Continued on page 46
 African Traditional Herbal Research Clinic
Volume 5, Issue 12 NEWSLETTER
FEATURED ARTICLES
AFRICAN HERITAGE SERIES:
THE AFRICAN BACKGROUND OF MEDICAL SCIENCE
By Charles Finch, M.D.
Moorhead School of Medicine
January 5, 2000
It has become increasingly clear that traditional African
cultures and civilizations knew and accomplished much
more than has traditionally been assumed. Even after
we've "restored" ancient Egypt - a civilization that was
the fountainhead of science - to its true and natural place
on African soil as an African creation, there is yet a
profound reluctance to admit that Africa contributed
anything of substance to world science.
In this article, the author hopes to show that traditional
African physicians evolved effective - even sophisticated
- diagnostic and therapeutic modalities in medicine which
belie the notion that Africa was without a medical
science.
Just as any discussion of the achievements of Western
medicine harkens back to Hippocrates and Galen, so any
discussion of African medical achievements harkens back
to ancient Egypt. Newsome, among others, has shown
what a debt Greek medicine owed to the priest-physicians
of Egypt.(1) Not only was the most important Greek
healing deity, Asclepios, identified with the legendary
Egyptian physician-architect-aphorist Imhotep but
Hippocratic therapeutics had direct antecedents in
Egyptian medicine. The city-state of Athens used to
import Egyptian physicians, as did most of the kingdoms
of the Near East, and in the Odyssey, Homer says, "In
medical knowledge, Egypt leaves the rest of the world
behind."(2)
Like all African medicine, Egyptian medicine has baffled
scholars because of the complete interpenetration of
"magico-spiritual" and "rational" elements. Mostly, this
magico-spiritual aspect has been downplayed or belittled.
However, at least one researcher concedes that healing,
being a complicated psychic as well as physical process,
may be amenable to an approach that touches that hidden
area of the psyche beyond the reach of rational
therapy.(3) Even modern medicine concedes that as much
as 60% of illness has a psychic base and indeed, the well-
-37- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
December 2010
known "placebo" effect of modern pharmaco-medicine
arises from this.(4) We moderns like to deride this
magico-spiritual medicine but it can and does produce
startling results that we do not understand.
The Egyptians were writing medical textbooks as early
as 5,000 years ago.(5) This indicates not only a mature
civilization but also a long period of medical
development. Out of the hundreds and thousands of
medical papyri that must have been written, only 10
have come down to us, the most important being the
Ebers and Edwin Smith Papyri. These 10 papyri form
the basis of most of what Egyptologists know about
Egyptian medicine. It has been affirmed, however, that
much of the training and instruction of the healing
priests must have been orally transmitted, as it is in the
rest of Africa.(6) It is likely, therefore, that we have
only a partial grasp of the true scope of Egyptian
medical knowledge. Moreover, like their counterparts
in the rest of Africa, the Egyptian priest-physicians
often kept their best knowledge secret.
Egyptian physicians were instructed in the "per ankh"
or "house of life" which served as a university, library,
medical school, clinic, temple, and seminary. The
numerous Greek philosophers who studied in Egypt,
such as Pythagorous, Thales, and Plato, must have
spent their time in a per ankh. In these centers of
learning, there was no sharp demarcation between the
fields of study; religion, philosophy, science,
astronomy, mathematics, music, and hieroglyphics
were all part of the same species of knowledge and
were reflected in one another.
It is of interest that the Egyptians were alone among the
nations of antiquity in the development of specialty
medicine. In the Old Kingdom, the diseases of each
organ were under the care of a specialist. In the later
epochs, the specialists disappeared as the Egyptian
Continued on page 38
Continued from page 37 – African Background of
Medicine Science
physician began to function as a generalist. However,
during Ptolemaic times, specialization came back into
the vogue, probably as a result of renewed interest in
the archaic culture. Not until the 20th century did
anything comparable in the sphere of medicine
develop. Contemporary doctors are accustomed to
believing that modern specialty medicine resulted from
a progressive evolution of medical techniques and
knowledge, hardly realizing that it is a throw back to
the earliest form of Egyptian medical practice.
A study of ancient Egyptian diagnostic methods reads
disconcertingly like a modern textbook on physical
diagnosis. A physician summoned to examine a patient
would begin with a careful appraisal of the patient's
general appearance. This would be followed by a series
of questions to elicit a description of the complaint. The
color of the face and eyes, the quality of nasal
secretions, the presence of perspiration, the stiffness of
the limbs or abdomen, and the condition of the skin
were all carefully noted. The physician was also at
pains to take cognizance of the smell of the body,
sweat, breath, and wounds. The urine and feces were
inspected, the pulse palpated and measured, and the
abdomen, swellings, and wounds probed and palpated.
The pulse taking is worth noting because it indicates
that the Egyptians knew of its circulatory and
hemodynamic significance. Percussion of the abdomen
and chest was performed and certain functional tests we
still use today were done, i.e., the coughing test for
hernia detection; the extension-flexion maneuver of the
legs to test for a dislocated lumbar vertebra.
Sometimes, the case required more than one
consultation and the physician might, as is done today,
embark on a "therapeutic trial" to ascertain the efficacy
of treatment. It also seems that the Egyptians practiced
a form of socialized medicine. All physicians were
employees of the state and medical care was available
to everyone.(7)
The extant medical papyri show us that the Egyptians
had quite an extensive knowledge of anatomy and
physiology. They understood the importance of
pulsation and - 4500 years before Harvey - knew
something of the structure and function of the
cardiovascular system. They knew that the heart was
the center of this system, had names for all the major
vessels, knew the relation between heart and lung, and
knew the distribution of the vessels through the
limbs.(8) They had names for the brain and
meninges(the covering of the brain and spinal cord) and
also seem to have known the relation between the
-38- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
nervous system and voluntary movements. In addition,
the ureters (the connections between the kidneys and
the bladder) were known and named. Most writers state
that the Egyptians’ anatomical knowledge while
relatively sophisticated, was, by modern standards,
rudimentary. They aver, for example, that the
Egyptians attached no special significance to the
brain.(9) But at least one researcher, utilizing sources
entirely different from the papyri, contradicts this
notion, asserting that their knowledge of neuroanatomy
in particular was as detailed and advanced as that in
modern times.(10)
The Egyptians were well-versed in many pathological
syndromes. The identification of a disease syndrome
necessitates acute and painstaking clinical observation,
often over many years, and many of the ones described
in the medical papyri are known today. Egyptian
physicians understood the origin of paraplegia and
paralysis from spinal cord injuries and recognized the
traumatic origin of neurological symptoms such as
deafness, urinary incontinence, and priapism. They
described many syndromes of cardiac origin. They
knew that excess blood in the heart and lungs was
pathological which is consistent with what we know
about congestive heart failure today. They also seem to
have recognized the significance of heart palpitations
and arrhythmias and gave a rather precise definition of
angina pectoris:
"If thou examinest a man for illness in his cardia and he
has pains in his arms, in his breast, and on one side of
his cardia...it is death threatening him."(ll)
The modern description of angina pectoris can hardly
improve upon this. The phrase seen in the Ebers
Papyrus, "belly too narrow for food," seems to indicate
an esophageal or stomach stricture perhaps from an
inflammatory or ulcerating process. Egyptian
physicians also knew that a weak heart adversely
affected the liver, calling to mind the pathological
enlargement of the liver which we know to be due to
heart failure. Faintness due to a "dumb heart" was
described which seems to be an allusion to a Stokes-
Adams attack.(12) It is evident that the ancient
Egyptian physicians had a fundamental grasp of the
pathophysiology of many of the syndromes we know
today.
Perhaps the most remarkable document among the
medical papyri is the surgical Edwin Smith Papyrus, a
compendium of Egyptian anatomical knowledge and
surgical methods. It is in this papyrus that the
remarkable descriptions of the traumatic surgical
lesions and their treatment are found. We also find that
Continued on page 39
Continued from page 38 – African Background of
Medicine Science
the priest-physicians also recognized the signs and
symptoms of sciatica, the sharp pain radiating down the
leg caused by nerve compression in the lower spinal
cord. Like many other peoples in Africa and the rest of
the world, the Egyptians practiced trephination. (13)
This operation, the forerunner of neurosurgery,
involves boring a hole through the skull to the outer
covering of the brain. This was done to remove
fragments from a skull fracture compressing the brain,
to treat epilepsy, or to relieve chronic headache. Today
in Africa there are people who have undergone this
operation with no apparent ill effects and there are
skulls from ancient Egyptian graves with definite signs
of healing around the trephination site so it is clear that
patients survived this operation.
As is seen very commonly in Africa, there was a
separate guild of bonesetters in Egypt who treated
fractures and dislocations. These specialists devised a
completely effective method for reducing collar bone
fractures which Hippocrates later used. (14) The Edwin
Smith Papyrus also describes maneuvers for reducing
dislocated jaws and shoulders. Long bone fractures
were immobilized with tight splints and nasal fractures
were treated by the insertion of stiff nasal packings into
the affected nostril, a method also used today for
uncomplicated nasal fractures.
The Egyptians had perhaps 3-4 thousand years of
experience dissecting and bandaging mummies and this
must have had beneficial effects on surgical technique.
They had an array of knives and scalpels to excise
tumors and drain abscesses. They used red-hot metal
instruments to seal off bleeding points and closed clean
wounds with sutures or adhesive tape. They were
unsurpassed as "bandagists" and used their techniques
to control bleeding. Fresh meat was also used to stop
oozing hemorrhage from surgical wounds. Like the
ancient Chinese, they used molds from bread or cereals
to treat wound infections. Modern penicillin was
extracted from a mold so the priest-physicians must
also have been aware of its bacteriacidal properties.
(15)
Like all African peoples, the Egyptians had a large
materia medica, using as many as 1000 animal, plant,
and mineral products in the treatment of illness. Night
blindness, caused by vitamin A deficiency, was treated
with ox livers, known to be rich in vitamin A. Poppy
extract - the source of opium - was used to treat colicky
babies. Modern physicians use paregoric - whose active
ingredient is opium - for exactly the same purpose.
-39- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
Patients with scurvy - caused by vitamin C deficiency -
were fed onions, a known source of vitamin C. Castor
seeds, the source of castor oil, were used to make cath-
artic preparations. Mandrake and henbane, sources of
belladonna alkaloids, were also known and used. The
belladonnas possess properties that stimulate the heart,
decrease stomach motility, dilate the pupils, and cause
sedation. The Egyptians dispensed their prescriptions as
pills, enemas, suppositories, infusions, and elixirs in
accurate, standardized doses causing some to wonder if
they had separate pharmacies and pharmacists. (16)
The Egyptians were also quite knowledgeable in
handling obstetric and gynecological problems. They
knew and treated uterine prolapse. They had means of
inducing abortions and preventing conception. They
even had an effective pregnancy test! A sample of a
woman's urine was sprinkled on growing cereals; if the
cereals did not grow the woman was considered not
pregnant; if they did grow she was declared pregnant.
Modern experiments have shown that a pregnant
woman's urine has a permissive effect on the growth of
barley in about 40% of the case, demonstrating that
there must have been some validity in the world's first
pregnancy test. (17)
Our glimpse of the medical system of this ancient
African civilization shows that it deserves its reputation
as the best and most advanced of antiquity. Indeed,
medicine as we know it today began in Egypt rather
than Greece. A study of other African systems of
medicine is more problematic, however, because of the
absence of surviving written records. Thus, most of
what we know comes from the testimony of European
missionaries whose contemptuous view of traditional
culture was most pointed when writing about traditional
medical practices. Nonetheless, it can be shown that the
best of the traditional healers in various parts of Africa
acquired a startling level of proficiency and, contrary to
contemporary opinion, were not without a medical
science.
It is pertinent to remember that Africa has been
subjected to centuries of almost continuous political,
social, and cultural disruption and that - among cultures
that rely heavily on oral transmission of knowledge - a
tremendous amount of knowledge has been lost. Thus,
the state of traditional medicine today does not reflect
the best of what the traditional doctors knew and
surviving fragments of eye-witness reports - as shall be
shown - indicate that they knew quite a lot.
Like ancient Egypt, all traditional African cultures had
a magico-spiritual conception of disease. Thus in this
setting, moral, social, or spiritual transgressions are
Continued on page 43

Long-term Contraceptive
Stockouts threatening Family
Planning
By EVELYN LIRRI
November 4, 2010
SHORT TERM PLANNING: A nurse injects a mother with
Depo- Provera. Demand for long term family planning methods
is high.
When health workers running a mobile make shift clinic
started setting up their equipment for the day’s work, Ms
Agnes Akullu was one of the first people to arrive.
The clinic, run weekly by Reproductive Health Uganda
(RHU), offers a range of health care services to the
residents of Agungu village, Paicho sub county in Gulu
District. Ms Akullu was here to seek family planning
services.
The 27-year-old mother of five children says she now
wants to start on family planning because she doesn’t
wish to have more children. “I first went to Unyama
Health Centre II but I was told the long term methods are
not there. That’s why I am here today,” she said. At
Unyama Health Centre II, there were only stocks for
short term methods-specifically pills.
Akullu’s earlier births, she explained were closely spaced
because she didn’t have access to long term
contraceptives. “I was relying on the short term methods
but they had a lot of side effects and not reliable so I
decided to discontinue them. I now want the long term
method,” she said.
Short term methods include condoms, pills, injections
(Depo-provera) and long term methods include coils,
implants, and intrauterine devices (IUDs).
The mobile clinic is the only hope for many women like
Akullu who want to stop having more children but who
don’t have access to the long term family planning
methods.
-40- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
With a high national fertility rate of 6.7 per cent, more
women are having frequent, unplanned pregnancies
often resulting from either the lack of access or wrong
use of contraceptives.
Health experts say more women now prefer the long-
term birth control methods, usually given in a single jab
or fitting because they are convenient and more
effective than the oral contraceptives like pills which
must be taken every day to prevent pregnancy.
Ms Filda Anish, the in-charge of RHU in Gulu said
demand for long term family planning methods is high
in the district. “It’s not only here in Agungu, but the
whole of the region where we are running programmes.
Many of the women complain that when they go to the
public health facilities, they only get the short term
methods,” said Ms Anisha. Ms Anisha explained that
even in some instances where the supplies are
available, they are often not enough to meet the already
huge demand.
While contraceptives are supposed to be free at
government hospitals, many women admit they
particularly can’t find the long term methods, yet many
at the same time can’t afford to purchase the long term
birth control method from the private clinics or health
facilities which they say are very expensive. In most
private clinics, long term family planning methods can
cost as much as Shs20,000 while short term methods
like pills go for as little as Shs500.
Dr Jotham Musinguzi, the regional director for Partners
in Population and Development explains that family
planning helps women to have healthy children,
breaking the cycle of poverty and accelerating the
achievement of the internationally agreed Millennium
Development Goals like maternal mortality. Maternal
mortality rates remain unacceptably high at 435 deaths
for every 100,000 women who get pregnant. Although
the MDG targets is to cut this figure to 131 per 100,000
live births by 2015, latest estimates show the country is
already off-track and will not meet the goal.
A big percentage of maternal deaths are due to the lack
of contraceptives for women, as many end up having
unwanted, high risk pregnancies. Dr Peter Ibembe, the
national programme manager at RHU says at least 44
per cent of all maternal deaths occur among young
people aged between 15-24, and this is the same age
group that largely has limited access to family planning
services.
According to health experts, ensuring access to family
planning services can reduce up to a-third of deaths that
would have occurred as a result of pregnancy-related
complications. Continued on page 41
Continued from page 40 – Long-term Contraceptive Stock-
outs threatening Family Planning
A 2009 Guttmacher Institute report for instance reveals
that up to 56 per cent (519,000) of the estimated 1.2
million births that occur in Uganda every year are
unintended. The report says these births could be averted
if all the women who wanted family planning services
had access to them.
Low funding
But funding for reproductive health remains low, with
much of it coming from donors. Figures from the
reproductive health division of the Ministry of Health
show for instance in 2007/8 financial year, of the
$5,622,133 (about sh10.7billion) required for
contraceptive procurement, the government allocated
only 1.458 billion (about 15 per cent).
Government says it is investing an additional $30 million
to address maternal and reproductive health needs of
women. This money, as Dr Francis Runumi, a
commissioner in the Ministry of Health explains is part of
a $130 million loan from the World Bank to improve the
country’s health care system.
http://www.monitor.co.ug/Magazines/Health%20&%20Living/
-/689846/1046344/-/view/printVersion/-/ysf3ez/-/index.html
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Let’s Deliver on our Promises
to Women through Family
Planning
By Ruth Nvumetta Kavuma
September 6, 2010
According to the Uganda Demographic Health Survey
Report (UDHS 2006), Ugandan women give birth to an
average of seven children, which is the third highest
fertility rate in the world. The children are also born too
early by teenage mothers. By continuing to give birth
frequently, our mothers are exposed to high risk
pregnancies and births.
With an average of 435 deaths per 100,000 live births,
maternal mortality in Uganda is very high. This translates
to 6,000 women in Uganda dying needlessly during
childbirth or pregnancy each year and 16 women dying
each day. This translates into the death of one full
minibus load of women everyday. These deaths can be
avoided if we truly commit to making women’s health a
priority in Uganda, in Africa, and globally.
Almost 40 per cent of pregnancies in Uganda are
unplanned. Of these, 15 per cent are unwanted yet
-41- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
contraceptive use in most rural areas remains particularly
low despite gains in national contraceptive prevalence rates
from 2.7 per cent to 18 per cent in 2006. This is partly
because family planning services are not easily accessible
especially in rural areas and the existence of rampant
rumours, misconceptions and negative attitude about
contraceptives use and family planning. Often times, the
negative attitude is influenced by our societal, cultural and
religious beliefs and practices.
At the same time, most of these unwanted and unplanned
pregnancies result from failure to educate girls. When we
fail to keep our girls in school, they end up in early and
sometimes forced marriages leading to unplanned
pregnancies.
It is clear that Uganda has reinvigorated political
momentum to improve maternal health. Last year, Uganda
hosted the International Conference on Family Planning,
the largest global meeting focusing on family planning
since 1994. In May this year, Uganda launched the African
Union Campaign on Accelerated Reduction of Maternal
Mortality in Africa (CARMMA) and also hosted the
International Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition
meeting in Kampala. This July, we hosted African Heads of
State for the 15th Summit of the African Union. The
summit was under the theme: “Maternal, Infant and Child
Health and Development in Africa.”
Uganda also has the technical knowledge of how to save
women’s lives. We have a clear plan: the Roadmap for
Accelerating the Reduction of Maternal and Neonatal
Mortality and Morbidity in Uganda (2007-2015). It outlines
our shortfalls in service provision and lays out a clear plan
for how we must move forward to meet the targets of the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), particularly those
to reduce maternal and child death.
It is now time to live up to our promises to women. We
need to finance this roadmap and align our budget to
supporting women and children’s health. The good news to
all Ugandans is that the Ministry of Health will soon
acquire a loan worth 130 million US dollars (about 260
billion Uganda shillings) from the World Bank to
strengthen health systems in the country. Of this, 30 million
dollars will go to maternal health and improving access to
family planning services.
This is a great achievement that also comes at a time when
President Museveni has just agreed that spending in all
sectors of government should support women and
children’s health. He agrees with the UNFPA Executive
Director, Thoraya Obaid, that road construction and repair
should be planned to allow women easier transport from
villages to health clinics and that electrification and water
Continued on page 42
Continued from page 41 - Lets Deliver on our Promises to Women
through Family Planning
projects should prioritise access for health facilities,
particularly in rural areas. Last week, family planning
champions, technical leaders, and development partners from
eastern African countries (Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya,
Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda) met in Kampala for the third
Eastern Africa Reproductive Health Network (EARHN)
coordination meeting under the theme, “Repositioning Family
Planning and Reproductive Health in Eastern Africa.” At this
meeting, we agreed that champions and leaders must work
together to reinvigorate and push for family planning at
national and community levels.
We also agreed that meeting the need for family planning can
reduce population growth and make achieving the MDGs
more attainable. Family planning also directly contributes to
the MDGs of reducing child mortality (MDG4) and
improving maternal health (MDG5). Family planning helps
reduce the number of high-risk pregnancies that result in high
levels of maternal and child illness and death.
According to recent research, just by addressing unmet need
for family planning, Uganda will avert 16,877 maternal
deaths and more than 1.1 million child deaths by the target
date of 2015. The cost savings in meeting the five MDGs by
satisfying unmet need for family planning outweighs the
additional investment in family planning by a factor of 4 to 1!
If Uganda spends $97 million on family planning, we will
save $13 million on malaria, $126 million on maternal health,
$59 million on water and sanitation, $52 million on
immunisation and $158 million on education, adding up to a
total savings of $408 million which can be invested
elsewhere.
We need to make this critical investment in family planning
to facilitate Uganda’s development and economic growth,
and more importantly, to live up to our promises to save the
lives of women and children.
Ms Kavuma is the Woman MP for Kalangala District
http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/Commentary/-/689364/1004358/-
/view/printVersion/-/q8ak4v/-/index.html
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Knowledge: The Noninvasive
Birth Control
by Melanie Banzer
January 27, 2009
(NaturalNews) As of now, the FDA has yet to approve of a
safe option for birth control. The pill has been linked to
higher breast cancer risk, the Depo Provera shot to infer-
-42- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
tility and osteoporosis, and the Mirena IUD to
spontaneous abortions and even death. The Nuva Ring
and the Patch can result in weight gain and blood clots,
which can increase a woman`s risk of having heart
attacks and strokes. Women are taught that the risk of
attacks and strokes. Women are taught that the risk of
pregnancy cannot be avoided unless they take one of
these hormone-altering drugs. They are taught to treat
fertility like a disease and medicate it away, not realizing
what a detrimental effect this can cause on long-term
health. They are rarely taught the usefulness of fertility
tracking as a means of monitoring one's probability for
pregnancy throughout the cycle.
Fertility awareness is a subject learned thoroughly by
couples trying to conceive. By following their cyclic
calendar and observing telltale signs of fertile mucous,
women can plan their sexual activities around ovulation
in order to increase likelihood of a pregnancy. On the
other hand, women trying to avoid pregnancy can use this
information to refrain from sexual activities (or make
sure to use protection) when they are most likely to get
pregnant. By combining fertility tracking with condoms,
the same desired results of birth control drugs are
achieved, without the pressing health concerns.
Regardless of whether the goal is to conceive or to avoid
conception, every woman should understand and record
the patterns of her own cycle. The average cycle lasts 28
days, but anywhere from 21 to 35 is perfectly normal. As
it happens, women are not machines with identical
wiring, so their organic bodies run unique courses.
Unfortunately, women with cycles over 28 days are often
urged by doctors to get on birth control drugs in order to
normalize "the problem." Having a regular 35 day cycle,
though, is not a problem at all and women should not feel
pressured to take drugs in order to fix their bodies`
natural rhythm.
Menstrual cycle length is measured by counting the first
day of bleeding as day 1 and the last day before the next
bleeding as the last day of the cycle. Assuming a 28 day
cycle, somewhere between days 11 and 21, the ovary
releases an egg which travels to the uterus and awaits
fertilization. If sperm does not reach the egg during this
time, the lining of the uterus will be shed on day 28 (or
on the last day), and the cycle will start all over again.
It is important for women to log their cycle patterns in a
calendar in order to get a clear picture of when ovulation
occurs. It usually begins some time between days 11 and
21, but this may vary every month. There are about 14
days between ovulation and the last day of the cycle, so if
a woman has a longer cycle, she can backtrack from the
last day for a good estimate of when she ovulated. The
Continued on page 43
Continued from page 42 – Knowledge: The Noninvasive Birth
Control
longer a cycle is tracked, the more reliable the results are.
By tracking one`s cycle for a full year, a fairly accurate
picture of fertility can be assumed.
In order to determine her fertility period, a woman should
take her shortest cycle out of a year and subtract 18 days
from it. If her shortest cycle was 28 days, then her fertility
window begins on day 10. Next, she should take the longest
cycle and subtract 11 days from it. If her longest cycle was
34, then the fertility window closes on day 23. She is most
likely to ovulate and become pregnant some time between
days 10 and 23 of her cycle. In other words, a woman who
is trying to avoid pregnancy should either abstain from sex
during this time or use condoms as contraception.
There are other clues that one`s body offers when ovulation
time has arrived. For one, the basal body temperature will
rise between 0.4 and 1 degree Fahrenheit. Cervical mucous
also becomes clear and stretchy. Some women will
experience pain on one side of the lower abdomen the day
an egg is released from the ovary. Many women experience
tenderness in the breasts. By noting these subtle changes,
fertility awareness can be achieved and used as a substitute
to invasive birth control drugs.
Recording these patterns requires keen attention and a
several month commitment, but is well worth it as an
alternative to birth control drugs. If fertility has been
tracked accurately and condoms are worn during the
fertility window, pregnancy can be easily avoided. Women
who have more than one partner should note that fertility
tracking does not protect against STDs and condom use is
encouraged throughout the cycle. For women who have
irregular cycles, results of fertility tracking will be less
reliable. There are supplements such as chasteberry and
yam-based progesterone creams that can assist in regulating
cycles before trying to track them.
Although much less harmful to the body than
phytoestrogen-containing birth control drugs, fertility
awareness should only be considered dependable if used by
responsible, dedicated individuals. Forgetting to mark a
cycle for a month or two can make getting an accurate
picture of one`s fertility very difficult. But for those who
have the diligence and ambition to understand their own
bodies, this is a highly recommended tool that can help
avert unwanted surprises today and maybe even provide a
head start a few years down the road, when the time to have
a baby has come.
References:
Fertility Awareness on WebMD:
http://www.webmd.com/infertility-an...
-43- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
Fertility Awareness on American Pregnancy Association:
http://www.americanpregnancy.org/pr...
http://www.naturalnews.com/025423_fertility_birth_control_wome
n.html
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Continued from page 39 – African Background of
Medical Science
likely to lead to illness because they create both individual
and communal disharmony. Without the psycho-spiritual cure
- without re-establishing this sensitive harmony - the
medicinal cure is considered useless. The traditional
practitioner is intimately acquainted with the psychic, social,
and cultural nuances of his people and more than one
commentator has acknowledged that the traditional doctor is
often an expert psychotherapist, achieving results with his
patients that conventional Western psychotherapy cannot.
Though there is no single paradigm of medical practice that
applies to all of Africa, many of the essential features of the
various traditional systems are comparable and even
identical. Among the Mano of Liberia, for example, all
children's diseases, all obstetrics, all of the "everyday"
complaints are handled by women, particularly the elderly
women; surgery, bonesetting, and special diagnostic and
therapeutic problems are handled almost exclusively by men.
This is a pattern that repeats itself throughout Africa.
The approach to the patient can vary in different parts of
Africa. In some societies, where the doctor is credited with
paranormal insight, the physician may arrive at a diagnosis
and prescribe treatment without questioning or examining the
patient since he is supposed to know what is wrong by virtue
of his special powers. However, other traditional doctors
affect an approach toward physical diagnosis closer to our
own:
"Many Western-trained doctors concede that the traditional
medical experts have a profound knowledge of the human
body and anatomy. This is demonstrated by a usually careful
diagnosis beginning with a history of the disease followed by
a thorough physical examination...He palpates the different
parts and looks for tender spots. He feels the beating of the
heart, the position of the inner organs, checks the eyes and
ears, and smells the mouth for bad breath." (18)
Most commentators have disparaged the traditional doctor's
knowledge of anatomy and physiology. The Mano, however,
have names for most of the major organs and know the
difference between normal and abnormal anatomy. (19)
Another author notes that the Banyoro of Uganda, renowned
in the last century for their surgical skill, had a wide
knowledge of anatomy. (20) A Hausa maneuver to test for
impotence has been described:
Continued on page 44
Continued from page 43 – African Background of Medicine
Science
"An individual is stripped and placed on a mat lying on his
back. A pin or thorn is lightly rubbed over the inside of his
thigh. If the scrotum or testicles do not move, the individual
is considered impotent."
There is a physiological basis for this procedure. The
maneuver in effect tests the cremasteric reflex. The
cremaster muscle contracts and pulls the testicles upward
on stimulation of the inside of the thigh. (21) This passage
belies the notion that African doctors were without a
knowledge of some of the body's physiological processes.
Moreover, Mano physicians - reputedly without an
understanding of the body's cardiovascular system - knew
that the conditions of anasarca and ascites were due to fluid
overload and treated accordingly with diuretic preparations.
These interesting fragments do not by themselves admit of
a sophisticated anatomical or physiological knowledge but
they hint at a greater degree of knowledge - perhaps in past
ages - than has hitherto been recognized.
Some case studies of cultures in east-central Africa have
brought to light some remarkable evidence revealing the
presence of scientific medicine there. The practice of
carrying out autopsies on patients dying of unknown causes
among the Banyoro of Uganda and the Likundu of Central
Africa has been described. Almost always these were
carried out to detect a possible witchcraft etiology but may
well have contributed to a more extensive knowledge of
anatomy than previously supposed:
"The procedures for autopsying bodies under the Likundu
culture have been reviewed, not for the purpose of
considering the beliefs that impelled such procedures but to
indicate that in some areas autopsies were frequently
carried out and that they involved searching in the body, a
search which might be casual and superficial but which in
other cases might be prolonged and exacting and involved
opening up and examining a variety of organs. These are
precisely the circumstances under which considerable
knowledge of anatomy and pathology could be acquired by
persons who, for any purpose, might wish to do so. (22)
Further, there is a report of a Banyoro king who
commissioned a traditional doctor to travel around the
countryside to investigate, describe, and search for a cure
for sleeping sickness, which was ravaging the country at the
time.(23) This clearly indicates that a spirit of clinical
investigation did exist among Banyoro physicians and
probably among other traditional practitioners as well. In
many parts of Africa, treatments were devised for new
diseases like venereal disease and scrofula that were
imported into Africa and this would presuppose some form
of clinical investigation and experimentation.
-44- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
In some parts of Africa, it would seem that the traditional
doctor had a firm grasp of some fundamental public
health principles. In Liberia, the Mano developed an
admirable quarantine system for smallpox. They were
well aware of its contagiousness and set aside a "sick
bush" for affected patients. This was situated well away
from the village and the patient was attended by only one
person; no one else was allowed to approach the area.
The patient was put on a careful diet and was rubbed with
topical anesthetic medications to prevent scratching
which could lead to infection. When the illness ran its
course, the area was burned. The "sick-bush" approach
would do a modern epidemiologist proud. Of further
interest is the centuries-old practice of small-pox
variolation which is carried out all over Africa. During an
epidemic, material from the pustule of a sick person is
scratched into the skin of unaffected persons with a thorn.
In the majority of instances, there is no reaction and the
persons inoculated are protected against smallpox. In
some cases, the inoculation will produce a mild, non-fatal
form of the disease which will also confer permanent
immunity.(24) Centuries before Jenner, Africans had
devised an effective vaccination method against
smallpox.
In the area of surgery, the best evidence indicates that
some African surgeons attained a level of skill
comparable, and in some respects superior, to that of
Western surgeons up to the 20th century. As in ancient
Egypt, the bonesetter guilds were separate from those of
the traditional doctors and were renowned for their skill.
Some commentators, observing the bonesetters of today,
feel that this reputation was somewhat inflated and the
bonesetters' results were less than optimum by Western
standards.(25) Yet other reports cite techniques that led
tohighly satisfactory results. Mano bonesetters treated a
patient with a thigh fracture by placing him in the loft of
a house allowing the affected leg to dangle free with a
heavy stone attached. This was a very effective traction
method and once the fracture was reduced, it was
immobilized with a tight splint. (26) In addition, the
patient was encouraged to exercise a fractured leg and we
know today that new bone is laid down more rapidly over
the fracture site when there is some exercise of the limb.
Bonesetters in other parts of Africa would dig a deep pit
for the purpose of exercising traction on a fractured limb
and in East Africa, the bonesetters reduced fractures and
dislocations by manual manipulation and traction. These
examples indicate that the bonesetters' reputation was not
entirely undeserved.
In many areas, especially among warlike peoples, the
Continued on page 45
Continued from page 44 - African Background of Medicine
Science
traditional physician was particularly adept in treating
traumatic wounds. One report describes the treatment of an
open wound by the following method: plant juices with
anti-septic properties were squeezed into the open
wound, a red hot metal tip was used to cauterize bleeding
points and burn away damaged tissue, the wound edges
were closed with a tough thorn, an awl, and fibrous suture
and a fiber mat was wrapped tightly around the wound to
prevent bleeding. The wound was never closed until the
bleeding had been stopped. (27)
In another documented instance, a native surgeon
successfully resected part of a patient's lung to remove a
penetrating arrow-head.(28) In the Congo, a native surgeon
was seen using stiff elephant hairs to probe for and
successfully remove a bullet.(29) In Nigeria, a man who
had had his abdomen ripped open by an elephant was
treated by the doctor by replacing the intestines in the
abdominal cavity, securing them in place with a calabash
covering, and finally suturing together the overlying
abdominal wall and skin. Not only did the man recover but
was soon back working on a road gang. (30) In the
testimony of one author:
"Witch doctors of many tribes perform operations for
cataract. They squeeze the juice from the leaves of an
alkaloid-containing plant directly into the eye to desensitize
it, then push the cataract aside with a sharp stick. A
surprising number of these cases turn out successfully."(31)
In East Africa, Masai surgeons were known to successfully
treat pleurisy and pneumonitis by creating a partial collapse
of the lung by drilling holes into the chest of the
sufferer.(32) It is pertinent to now consider one of the most
remarkable examples of African surgery ever documented.
This is an eye-witness account by a missionary doctor
named Felkin of a Caesarean section performed by a
Banyoro surgeon in Uganda in 1879:
"The patient was a healthy-looking primipara (lst
pregnancy) of about twenty years of age and she lay on an
inclined bed, the head of which rested against the side of
the hut. She was half-intoxicated with banana wine, was
quite naked and was tied down to the bed by bands of bark
cloth over the thorax and thighs. Her ankles were held by a
man...while another man stood on her right steadying her
abdomen...the surgeon was standing on her left side holding
the knife aloft and muttering an incantation. He then
washed his hands and the patient's abdomen first with
banana wine and then water. The surgeon made a quick cut
upwards from just above the pubis to just below the
umbilicus severing the whole abdominal wall and uterus so
that amniotic fluid escaped.
-45- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
Some bleeding points in the abdominal wall were touched
with red hot irons. The surgeon completed the uterine
incision, the assistant helping by holding up the sides of the
abdominal wall with his hand and hooking two fingers into
the uterus. The child was removed, the cord cut, and the
child was handed to an assistant." (33)
The report goes on to say that the surgeon squeezed the
uterus until it contracted, dilated the cervix from inside with
his fingers (to allow post-partum blood to escape), removed
clots and the placenta from the uterus, and then sparingly
used red hot irons to seal the bleeding points. A porous mat
was tightly secured over the wound and the patient turned
over to the edge of the bed to permit drainage of any
remaining fluid. The peritoneum, the abdominal wall, and
the skin were approximated back together and secured with
seven sharp spikes. A root paste was applied over the
wound and a bandage of cloth was tightly wrapped around
it. Within six days, all the spikes were removed. Felkin
observed the patient for 11 days and when he left, mother
and child were alive and well. (34)
In Scotland, Lister had pioneered antiseptic surgery just
two years prior to this event but universal application of his
methods in the operating rooms of Europe was still years
away. Caesarean sections were performed only under the
most desperate circumstances and only to save the life of
the infant. A Caesarean section to save the lives of both
mother and child was unheard of in Europe nor are there
records of such a procedure among the great civilizations of
antiquity. As one commentator has said:
"The whole conduct of the operation as Felkin described it
suggests a skilled, long-practiced surgical team at work
conducting a well-tried and familiar operation with smooth
efficiency and unhurried skill...Lister's team in London
could hardly have performed with greater smoothness."
(35)
Not only did the surgeon understand the sophisticated
concepts of anesthesia and antisepsis but also demonstrated
advanced surgical technique. In his sparing use of the
cautery iron, for example, he showed that he knew tissue
damage could result from its overuse. The operation was
without question a landmark, reflecting the best in African
surgery.
African midwives possessed a good understanding of some
fundamental obstetric and pediatric principles.
Mano midwives pulled repeatedly at the breasts of women
in labor, a maneuver which induces the release of oxytocin
- a stimulator of uterine contractions - from the pituitary
gland. They sometimes took laboring mothers upon their
backs walking around with and shaking them.
Continued on page 46
Continued from page 45 - African Background of Medicine
Science
This undoubtedly had the effect of causing the cervix to dilate
and the head to engage, thus facilitating labor.(36)
Some Bantu midwives were known to use Indian hemp
during labor for its sedative properties. Newborn babies
and infants were taken and exposed to the sun for a period
each day "to make them strong." One author attributed the
rare occurrence of rickets among Mano children to this
practice.(37) In addition, these women healers recognized the
causes of malnutrition and retarded development, putting
such children on special diets high in vitamins and
carbohydrates with favorable results.(38)
Traditional African cultures have an abundant materia
medica. The Zulus, for example are reputed to know the
medicinal uses of some 700 plants. (39) Ouabain, capsicum,
physostigmine, kola, and calabar beans are just a few of the
substances from the African materia medica that have made
their way into the Western pharmacopeia.(40)
The traditional midwives often have drugs that can induce
abortion in the first three months of pregnancy and in
Uganda, in an area where there is a high incidence of dystocia
(retarded labor), the midwives have preparations which
stimulate uterine contractions. "Fever-leaf" is used all over
Africa to treat the recurring fevers of malaria. Certain Bantu-
speaking peoples use the bark of Salix capensis (willow) to
treat the musculoskeletal complaints of rheumatism.(41) This
family of plants yields salicylic acid, the active ingredient in
aspirin, a sovereign remedy the world over for
musculoskeletal pains. Kaolin, the active ingredient in
Kaopectate is used in Mali to combat diarrhea. Caffeine-
containing kola nuts are chewed all over Africa for their
stimulating and fatigue-combating properties. To combat
snakebite, plants containing ouabain and strichnine are used.
The former is a heart stimulant and therefore useful against
cardiotoxic venoms and the latter is a nerve tonic, useful
against neurotoxic venoms. In Nigeria in 1969, the rootbark
Annona senegalensis was found to possess strong anti-cancer
properties.(42)
Even more recently in 1979, herbal preparations that were
used in Nigeria to treat skin infections were found have
definite bacteriocidal activity against gram-positive bacteria,
the very organisms that cause skin infections. (43) There was
an interesting case in 1925 of an eminent Nigerian in England
who was suffering from severe psychotic episodes not
amenable to treatment by English doctors. A traditional
doctor from Nigeria was summoned who was able to relieve
the patient of his symptoms with decoctions made from a
rauwolfia root. (44) The Rauwolfia family of plants is the
source of modern-day Reserpine, first used as a major
tranquilizer to treat severe psychosis but now used mainly as
-46- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
an antihypertensive medication.
The list of effective drugs in the African pharmocopeia
is too extensive to elucidate here but suffice to say that
traditional doctors in Africa had and have effective
remedies against intestinal parasites, vomiting, skin
ulcers, rashes, catarrh, convulsions, tumors, venereal
disease, bronchitis, conjunctivitis, urethral stricture and
many other complaints.
There are at least two documented instances of
Europeans benefiting from the ministrations of the
traditional physician. In the last century, a Bushman
doctor cured a European woman dying of sepsis that
the European doctor could not treat. In Swaziland, a
European doctor, dying of dysentery, was cured by a
native physician. (45) Moreover, the native physicians
in this area were so skilled at treating Typhoid Fever
that the European doctors used their decoctions for the
same purpose.
#This article has attempted to show that the traditional
doctors of Africa from the earliest times had a high
level of medical and surgical skill, certainly much more
than they have been given credit for. It is to be hoped
that more substantive and careful investigations will be
carried out among the traditional healers of Africa
before Western-style medicine supplants them entirely.
http://www.raceandhistory.com/selfnews/viewnews.cgi?new
sid995545990,4925,.shtml
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Continued from page 36 - Report: Abortions
Fall; Unsafe Procedures Still Prevalent
the pro-choice position to the pro-life camp. A Pew
Research Center survey, conducted in August, found
that the percentage of Americans who support legalized
abortion dropped from 54 percent in previous years to
47 percent this year. Opposition to abortion grew from
40 percent to 44 percent.
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20091014/report-
abortions-fall-unsafe-procedures-still-prevalent/
☻☻☻☻☻☻
To Save Women's Lives in
Africa, bring Abortion out of
the Shadows
By Sharon Camp
12 November 2010
Guardian.co.uk
Every year, 5.5 million women in Africa risk their lives
when they decide to terminate a pregnancy, due to poor
Continued on page 47
Continued from page 46 – To Save Women’s Lives in Africa,
bring Abortion out of the Shadows
health services. These are not risks any woman should be
forced to take
More than 250 health professionals, advocates and
parliamentarians from countries throughout Africa and
other regions have gathered in Accra to address the issue
of unsafe abortion, one of the continent's biggest threats
to women's health.
While abortion is very safe in countries where it is legal
and provided by trained medical professionals,
clandestine abortion – the norm in most of Africa – can
lead to death and serious injury. Approximately 26,000
African women die as a result of unsafe abortion every
year. Another 1.7 million are hospitalised, and many
others also suffer serious health complications, but never
seek treatment.
Over 90% of African women of childbearing age live in
countries with limited or no access to safe abortion
procedures. According to the most recent data available,
of the 5.6m abortions carried out in the region every year,
only 100,000 are performed under safe conditions.
Here's another way to think about that statistic: every
year, about 5.5 million women in Africa risk their lives
when they decide to terminate a pregnancy. Drinking
bleach or inserting sharp objects into their cervix are only
two of the horrifying methods they use. These are not
risks any woman should be forced to take.
The terrible toll of unsafe abortion goes well beyond the
individual woman. Losing their mother and care-giver
devastates the lives of children and families, and losing a
healthy woman's many contributions to society weakens
her community. Unsafe abortion is also a serious drain on
very limited public health resources. African
governments spend, on average, $114 per case to provide
care for illness and disability associated with unsafe
abortion, yet per-capita spending on healthcare averages
just $48.
While some African nations have loosened abortion
restrictions, 14 countries still prohibit it under all circum-
stances – even to save the pregnant woman's life. This
flies in the face of considerable evidence that legalising
abortion saves lives and reduces persistently high
maternal mortality rates. One good example is South
Africa, where – just six years after the country liberalized
its abortion laws – the number of women dying from
unsafe abortion dropped by 50%, and the number of
women suffering serious complications fell dramatically
as well.
Restrictive abortion laws are also not very effective at
-47- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
achieving their purported goal – stopping women from
obtaining abortions. Evidence from around the world
shows abortion happens at about the same rate in regions
where it is highly restricted and where it is broadly legal.
The key difference is safety.
If a country's leaders want to reduce abortion, punitive
laws clearly are not the way to go. Rather, they should
focus on reducing the number of unplanned pregnancies.
The single biggest thing a country can do to reduce the
number of abortions, both safe and unsafe, and to
improve women's overall health is to make sure all
women have access to and information about effective
contraceptive methods.
But in Sub-Saharan Africa today, about 60% of women
who want to avoid a pregnancy are not using family
planning or rely on a less effective traditional method.
Research by the Guttmacher Institute shows that
expanding the availability of family planning in Sub-
Saharan Africa, so that all women who want to delay
pregnancy have access to effective contraception, would
reduce the number of unsafe abortions from 5.2m to
1.2m. The number of women needing care for
complications of these unsafe procedures would fall from
2.2 million to 500,000. Achieving these reductions will
require significant financial investment from African
governments and donor countries alike, but one with far-
reaching benefits: fewer unplanned pregnancies, fewer
unsafe abortions and fewer maternal and newborn deaths.
The evidence is clear and compelling, but if it falls on
deaf ears women will continue to die and suffer from
unsafe abortions. But as this week's conference in Accra
shows us, people are listening. There are dedicated
individuals from all over the continent working together
to take the evidence and translate it into action that will
save the lives of African women. Government leaders
must also start paying attention to the evidence that will
help guide them toward laws, policies and programmes
that will better protect women and build stronger
families, communities and, ultimately, nations.
Poverty Matters Blog in partnership with the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-
matters/2010/nov/12/abortion-africa-health
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Theory: When human populations face unexplained
extinction, does the fertility rate of those populations
increase? Does a law of nature account for this or
does this come under survival of the fittest? Black
people are still here and producing more than ever.
How would you explain this? BHSN

Black Women are more likely to
have Abortions than White
Women
Guardian icon Marie Stopes would be pleased
By Ed West
March 8, 2010
Here is a provocative quote:
The abortion industry is targeting the black woman. There is
no lynch mob wearing white sheets and hoods. What they’ve
done is take off the hoods and put on suits and say: let’s go
and kill the black people. It’s cloaked itself by talking about
choice. But the industry has targeted the black community. If
people were put on the endangered species list then certainly
black children would be there because more are aborted than
at any time in history.
So says Catherine Davis, an African-American anti-abortion
activist who is leading a campaign that particularly offends
the Guardian. As that newspaper reports:
Anti-abortion activists have been accused of exploiting
America’s tragic racial history with a growing campaign to
persuade black women that the high rate of terminations
among African Americans is a racist conspiracy on a par with
slavery and lynching.
The strategy has also focused on the fact that a leading
abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, was founded by a
woman [Margaret Sanger] who was a leading proponent of
eugenics, a belief that the human gene pool could be
improved by selective breeding and sterilisation, and who
heavily promoted birth control among black people.
But ghastly though Margaret Sanger was, she was an angel
next to Britain’s Marie Stopes, voted “Woman of the
Millennium” by Guardian readers in 1999 and in 2008
honoured on a UK postage stamp. Stopes once said: Utopia
could be reached in my lifetime, had I the power to issue
inviolable edicts… I would legislate compulsory sterilisation
of the insane, feeble-minded… revolutionaries… half-castes.
The insane? Feeble-minded? Revolutionaries? Who would be
left to buy the Guardian?
Stopes was so obsessed with improving the gene pool that she
went as far as attending the International Congress for
Population Science in Berlin in 1935, not, as any keen student
of history will notice by the time and place, a very
progressive event. But she was always motivated by love, as
she wrote to one friend:
Dear Herr Hitler, Love is the greatest thing in the world: so
-48- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
will you accept from me these (poems) that you may allow
the young people of your nation to have them?
After the war, when Dear Herr Hitler had rather given the
whole sterilisation thing a bad name (well before they
began murdering Jews, the Nazis forcibly sterilised 400
“Rhineland bastards”, children of French African soldiers
and German mothers), the eugenics crowd turned to
legalised abortion as the next best thing.
As Dennis Sewell recalls in The Political Gene, in 1992
Lord Steel (not himself a eugenicist, of course) paid tribute
to the role of the Abortion Law Reform Association
(ALRA) in helping pass the 1967 Abortion Act. The
ALRA was founded by five members of the Eugenics
Society. Indeed, one of David Steel’s medical advisers
during the passage of the Bull was a fellow of the Eugenics
Society. (Another of his advisers joined a couple of years
later.)
Today in Britain, as Department of Health figures for 2008
show, black women exercise their right to choose
proportionately more often than white women. The woman
of the millennium would be very pleased.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwest/100029002/black-
women-are-more-likely-to-have-abortions-than-white-women-
guardian-icon-marie-stopes-would-be-pleased/
☻☻☻☻☻☻
What the Hell did Ruth Bader
Ginsburg mean when she
linked Abortion and
Eugenics?
By Damian Thompson
July 12th, 2009
The mainstream media have been incredibly slow to pick
up on a creepy comment by Supreme Court Justice Ruth
Bader Ginsburg in a New York Times interview published
today but flagged last week. In it, Ginsburg talks about Roe
v Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalised abortion:
Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided,
there was concern about population growth and particularly
growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many
of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid
funding for abortion.
What? You can find the full context of the remark here, in
the Times interview, but it doesn’t settle matters. And the
(pro-choice) media haven’t exactly jumped on the story.
Bloggers are incredulous. This is what Creative Minority
Report had to say yesterday: Continued on page 49
Continued from page 48 – What the Hell did Ruth Bader
Ginsburg Mean……..
Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s comments about using abortion as
population control raised a lot of eyebrows in the
blogosphere. Over 9,236 to be precise, according to Google
blog search.
Huge sites too like Hot Air featured the story prominently.
Even Drudge ran with the story yesterday.
But as of this morning the mainstream media have
completely ignored the story about one of the most
powerful people in the country essentially endorsing
eugenics on populations “we don’t want to have too many
of”.
What the heck is going on here? What are we to make of
the media’s complete silence on this issue? They don’t see
a little eugenics between friends as a big deal? They
thought it was taken out of context?
As the large metropolitan newspapers die, they’re
wondering why. This is why.
Fair point. You might think the New York Times might
want to trumpet its exclusive. But the mindset of that
pompous, prickly, boring, self-regarding publication is so
overwhelmingly liberal that it didn’t even realise it had a
story on its hands.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100002972/w
hat-the-hell-did-ruth-bader-ginsburg-mean-when-she-linked-
abortion-and-eugenics/
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Study: Home-Administered
Misoprostol Safe Abortion
Option for Women Up To 63
Days Pregnant
March 15, 2010
A team of Swedish researchers concludes that taking
misoprostol at home as part of a medical abortion regimen
is a safe option for women who are 50 to 63 days pregnant,
according to a study published in the journal Human
Reproduction. The study's authors said that their research is
the first published report to examine at-home medical
abortion in women who were more than 49 days pregnant.
In the U.S., women have been permitted to take physician-
prescribed misoprostol at home since 2000. Mifepristone --
the first drug in the medical abortion regimen, which is
taken three to four days prior to misoprostol -- is
administered at a clinic, physician’s office or hospital. Most
European countries require that
-49- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
women take both drugs in a clinic, doctor's office or
hospital, although home administration is permitted in
Sweden, Reuters reports.
For the study, Helena Kopp Kallner of the Karolinska
Institutet in Stockholm and colleagues followed about
3,000 medical abortion patients at their clinic in
Sweden from January 2004 through April 2007. Of the
women, 395 opted for home administration of
misoprostol. Of those 395 women, 203 were fewer than
50 days pregnant and 192 were 50 to 63 days pregnant.
The home-administration group took mifepristone
orally at the clinic and was given four misoprostol
tablets to administer vaginally up to two days later.
Among women who were fewer than 50 days pregnant,
199 experienced complete abortions, while 186 of the
women who were between 50 and 63 days pregnant
experienced complete abortions. Ten women required
surgery. About six in 10 women in both groups needed
extra pain medication. The study concluded that home
administration of misoprostol is "safe and highly
acceptable also to women with a gestational length of
50-63 days as compared with shorter gestations".
Source: MediLexicon, 12 March 2010
http://www.ippf.org/en/News/Intl+news/Study+Home+admi
nistered+misoprostol+safe+abortion+option+for+women+up
+to+63+days+pregnant.htm
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Polysorbate 80 in Swine Flu
Vaccines = Infertility in
Humans
November 2009
Would you feel comfortable being injected with a
vaccine that contains a substance that has been strongly
linked to infertility? Well, if you take the Fluarix swine
flu vaccine manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline or any
of the other swine flu vaccines that contain Polysorbate
80 that is exactly what you will be doing. If you are
considering getting the swine flu vaccine, or any other
vaccine for that matter, perhaps you should educate
yourself about EXACTLY what is in these vaccines
before you allow them to be injected into your body.
Perhaps you think that linking the swine flu vaccine
with infertility is quite a stretch. Well, let's take this
one step at a time.
#1) Polysorbate 80 is in the Fluarix swine flu vaccine
manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline according to the
Continued on page 50
Continued from page 49 – Polysorbate 80 in Swine Flu
Vaccines
CDC. This is confirmed by the CDC in the document
below.....
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/ap
pendices/B/excipient-table-2.pdf
#2) A medical study done in Slovakia injected newborn
female rats with Tween 80 (Polysorbate 80). These
newborn female rats were injected with Polysorbate 80 at
days 4 to 7 after birth. The researchers found
that Polysorbate 80 accelerated the maturation of the female
rats, damaged the vagina and womb lining, caused
significant hormonal changes, severe ovary deformities and
ultimately rendered the young female rats infertile.
In fact, Dee Nicholson, the National Communications
Director for Freedom in Canadian Health Care is not shy
about saying that Polysorbate 80 is "linked to infertility in
mice".
#3) In the package insert for Fluarix, GlaxoSmithKline
specifically mentions that they cannot guarantee that their
flu vaccine will not damage your fertility: "FLUARIX has
not been evaluated for carcinogenic or mutagenic potential,
or for impairment of fertility." Thanks to foolishly passed
laws by the U.S. government, you will not be able to sue
anyone if it does leave you infertile.
#4) GlaxoSmithKline is not alone in using Polysorbate 80.
It is being reported that Novartis is using the adjuvant
MF59 in its swine flu vaccine. The MF59
adjuvant contains Tween80 (Polysorbate 80) and squalene
among other things.
#5) On the World Intellectual Property Organization, a
patent application for a "fertility impairing vaccine". The
University of Georgia Research Foundation is listed as
the patent applicant.
In the description section of the patent applic-ation, Tween
80 (Polysorbate 80) is listed as a preferred ingredient:
"In a preferred embodiment the vaccine comprises oil,
preferably a biodegradable oil such as squalene oil, in an
amount of about 2.5% to about 15%, preferably about 8%
to about 12%. In preparing the vaccine it is advantageous to
combine a concentrated oily adjuvant composition with an
aqueous solution of the antigen, pZP glycoprotein.
Typically, the vaccine is prepared using an adjuvant
concentrate which contains lecithin (about 5% to about 15
% wt/vol, preferably about 12% wt/vol) and STDCM
(preferably about 25 mg/mL to about 50 mg/mL) in
squalene oil. The term % wt/vol means grams per 100 mL
of liquid. The aqueous solution containing the isolated pZP
glycoprotein is typically a phosphate-buffered saline (PBS)
-50- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
solution, and additionally preferably contains Tween 80
(about 0.2% vol/vol to about 0.8% vol/vol, preferably
about 0.4% vol/vol)."
#6) The United Nations is actively seeking ways to limit
and control population growth around the globe. An
incredibly shocking U.N. population division policy brief
from March 2009 asked this very disturbing question:
What would it take to accelerate fertility decline in the
least developed countries?
You can read this almost unbelievable document here:
http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/UNPD_po
licybriefs/UNPD_policy_brief1.pdf
The reality is that for the super wealthy global elite and
the majority of the social engineers at the United Nations,
population control is a major obsession.
The truth is that the more people learn about what is in
these vaccines, the less likely they are to take them. It is
important to do your own research before letting anyone
inject anything into your body. Those who blindly trust
the government or world health authorities are likely the
ones to end up being extremely disappointed in the end.
http://organichealthadviser.com/archives/polysorbate-80-in-
swine-flu-vaccines-infertility-in-humans
☻☻☻☻☻☻
CDC Allegedly Falsifies
Reports--Ignoring up to
3,587 Miscarriages from
H1N1 Vaccine
NCOW Press Release
September 17, 2010
A shocking report from the National Coalition of
Organized Women (NCOW) presented data from two
different sources demonstrating that the 2009/10 H1N1
vaccines contributed to an estimated 1,588 miscarriages
and stillbirths. A corrected estimate may be as high as
3,587 cases. NCOW also highlights the disturbing fact
that the CDC failed to inform their vaccine providers of
the incoming data of the reports of suspected H1N1
vaccine related fetal demise.
NCOW collected the data from pregnant women (age 17-
45 years) that occurred after they were administered a
2009 A-H1N1 flu vaccine. The raw data is available on
the website. Using the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting
System (VAERS), including updates through July 11,
Continued on page 51
Continued from page 50 – CDC Allegedly Falsifies Reports
2010 as a second ascertainment source, capture-recapture
statistical methods* were used to estimate the true number
of miscarriages and stillbirths following A-H1N1 flu
vaccination in the U.S. Typically, even so-called
"complete" studies conducted by the CDC have been shown
to miss from 10% to 90% of the actual cases because of
under-reporting.
The statistical method employed is an expeditious and cost
effective method of attempting to ascertain a complete
count of all cases when two or more ascertainment sources
(VAERS and NCOW survey) have failed to collect all the
existing cases. Overall, this approach shows that
approximately only 15% of the occurrences of a
miscarriage or stillbirth were actually reported.
The corrected estimate for the total number of 2009-A-
H1N1-flu-shot-associated miscarriages and stillbirths
during the 2009/10-flu season is 1,588 (95% goodness-of-
fit confidence interval, 946 to 3587). That is, the lower and
upper range-probability of miscarriage and stillbirths due to
the H1N1 vaccine was as low as 946 and as high as 3,587.
Eileen Dannemann, Director of NCOW, presented the
findings for the second time to Dr. Marie McCormick, chair
of the Vaccine Risk and Assessment Working Group,
during the Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines
(ACCV) meeting, Sept 3, 2010. Just prior to Ms.
Dannemann’s presentation Dr. McCormick, had
pronounced that there were absolutely no H1N1 vaccine-
related adverse events in pregnant women in 2009/10,
directly contradicting the evidence publicly available. “This
baseless and fallacious assessment by the CDC assessment
group” says, Dannemann, “has given the green light to the
CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices
(ACIP) to continue their recommendation to give the
2010/11 flu shot to all people, including pregnant women.
This upcoming 2010/11 flu vaccine contains the same
elements that are implicated in the killing of these fetuses,
the H1N1 viral component and the neurotoxin mercury
(Thimerosal). Additionally, it contains 2 other viral strains-
a 3 in 1 shot for all people”.
The very next week at the Sept 14th National Vaccine
Advisory Committee (NVAC) meeting Dr. McCormick,
(despite having been informed on two previous occasions
of the VAERS data) pronounced, once again, that there
were no adverse events in pregnant women. At the
conclusion of the NVAC meeting, during public comment,
Dannemann submitted the data for the 3rd time and
concluded with, “Why hasn’t Dr. McCormick looked in the
VAERS data base?” “She looked where she knew she
would not find”, a disquieting thought, Ms. Dannemann,
said in retrospect.
-51- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
Excerpts and adaptation from speech delivered by
Eileen Dannemann, Director, National Coalition of
Organized Women Friday, September 3, 2010 to the
Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines (ACCV)
meeting.
“Initially, at the beginning of the H1N1 pandemic
consequence management drill there were allegedly 30
maternal deaths. It was these deaths that the CDC used
as the basis to initiate a strenuous and aggressive
campaign to vaccinate the pregnant population with the
untested H1N1 vaccine. The CDC ascertained that
there were eventually a total of 56 maternal deaths
(assuming the fetuses died with them). Dr. Alicia
Siston’s JAMA study (CDC) acknowledged that most
of these deaths were ‘unconfirmed’ H1N1 virus caused
deaths despite the fact that the CDC had tests that could
have verified, for certain, that these were H1N1 related
deaths.
Vaccine-related fetal demise reports from VAERS
increased 2,440%--from 7 cases in 2007/8 to 178 in
2009/10. Seventy deaths reported from another source
had 7 overlapping cases with VAERS, yielding 241
unique cases. Simplistically speaking, it would have
been 85 to 192 times safer not to vaccinate from the
perspective of the in-utero child.
Considering that the total of 56 maternal deaths in Dr.
Alicia’s Siston’s study, allegedly due to the H1N1 virus
itself, are unverified and in light of the overwhelming
adverse events reported, we emphasize that inoculating
pregnant women with another untested vaccine
containing a combination of components found in the
offending 2009 H1N1 vaccine is insupportable. Thus, it
must be argued that the CDC was grossly negligent to
fail to inform their vaccine providers of the incoming
VAERS data, while providers blindly followed the
CDC “standard of care” guidelines to vaccinate every
pregnant woman in 2009/10. Furthermore, in the face
of these findings and the purposeful withholding of
these findings by CDC’s Dr. Marie McCormick and her
vaccine risk assessment group, for the CDC’s Advisory
Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) to
recommend another iteration of the same vaccine to
pregnant women in 2010/11 may be argued as more
than gross negligence -but rather- an act of willful
misconduct.
We strongly recommend that the CDC withdraws their
continued recommendation to pregnant women,
instead, strictly adhering to the FDA/manufacturers
warning on the insert packages that the flu shot not be
given to pregnant women unless clearly needed. As
well, we suggest that the CDC advise all Ob/Gyns,
Continued on page 52
Continued from page 51 – CDC Allegedly Falsifies Reports
vaccine providers and the public this year, of last season’s
VAERS reports on H1N1 vaccine-related fetal deaths”
despite the fact that it may be contrary to CDC’s vaccine
uptake performance goals”.
*Gary S. Goldman, Ph.D, author of various peer-reviewed
medical journal publications, has verified the capture-
recapture (C-R) figures published in the NCOW report. Dr.
Goldman previously worked for 8 years as a Research
Analyst for the L.A. County Department of Health Services
in an epidemiological study project funded by the CDC.
Downloadable version [PDF 123K]
http://www.progressiveconvergence.com/Final%20Press%20Releas
e%20CDC%20Allegedly%20falsified.htm
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Continued from page 3 – Traditions and Customs of
the Njovu Clan
among whom are J. Roscoe, Sir Apolo Kaggwa and M.
B. Nsimbi;
o Consultation with Hajj Mahmoud Ssekimpi Ssemmambo,
the Katikkiro of the Njovu Clan and with members of the
Clan’s top executive committee, and with some leaders
within the Njovu Clan; and
o Discussions with people who are considered authorities
on these matters such as Omutaka Dr. Adam Kimala,
Ssenga Joyce Nnalujja Tomusange, Mr. Edward
Ssemukuutu, and Mr. Kefa Ssentoogo Ssenjoobe.
o Personal observation at many traditional ceremonies and
festivals.
Birth customs and Traditions
Pregnancy
There is great joy when a wife is expecting a baby. Children
are looked upon as the buds of society and as a continuation
of the life of their parents, the family, the clan and the
community. Therefore, the birth of a child in the family is one
of the greatest blessings from God to that family; and it is
greeted with great joy and satisfaction.
The pregnant woman informs her husband and her friends,
her mother, her mother-in-law and other close relatives.
Before long, other people get to know about it. Pregnancy is a
great moment for the woman and her family. For the young
woman who has never had children before, the pregnancy is
proof of her fertility and ability to bear children, thereby
feeling liberated from the stigma of barrenness. She is now
more assured of her marriage and she is treated with greater
respect than before by her husband’s relatives.
The pregnancy is the first indication that a new member of
the clan and of society is on the way, and steps begin to be
-52- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
taken immediately to ensure the safety of the baby and
the mother during and after pregnancy.
Steps taken to ensure a safe birth and safety of the
child
The pregnant woman has to observe certain regulations
and taboos in order to protect the baby and herself. In
traditional Kiganda society, she has to leave the marital
bed and stop sleeping with her husband altogether after
about the 6th month of pregnancy and until roughly
three months after delivery. It is great taboo for her to
be intimate with a man who is not her husband because
it is believed that the baby will die. She is barred from
eating certain foods that are considered harmful to the
baby and her, e.g. salt, yam leaf broth (ettimpa), lima
beans, ripe plantain (gonja), certain types of fish, fat
meat, grasshoppers (enseenene) and pork because of
their fat content. She is advised not to assume certain
postures that can affect the positioning of the baby in
the womb and eventual delivery, e.g. sitting sideways.
Old women help her to put the baby in a proper
position (okuteereza omwaana mu lubuto) and they
give her herbs to soften the passage of the baby when
delivery comes (okumenya). A pregnant woman is not
supposed to attend burials. It is great taboo for a
pregnant woman to touch her husband’s, fetishes,
spears, or shield because it is believed that the
pregnancy makes the woman ritually unclean.
The pregnant woman receives traditional ante-natal
care. From the moment she finds that she is pregnant,
she begins taking certain herbs and medicines to
safeguard the baby and herself, and to be assured of a
safe delivery. She also bathes in certain herbs and
medicines for the same reason. These herbs and
medicines are normally supplied by her mother-in-law,
her own mother, and her aunts and even trusted old
women who are known to have a “good” or “lucky
hand”. She is massaged during pregnancy. She
normally bathes in cold water in order to make her
strong and immune to certain weaknesses and ailments
brought about by inactivity. She is supposed to keep
herself out of the public eye to avoid the evil eye.
Modern Changes
The pregnant woman, especially one who lives in an
urban area, receives modern ante-natal care services
from a health facility, such as a clinic, dispensary,
health centre, or hospital, where:
(b) she can be counselled and guided on primary
healthcare, motherhood, reproduction, HIV/AIDS
and other sexually transmitted diseases, family
planning, feeding and nutrition, and immunisation
against killer-diseases; Continued on page 53
Continued from page 52 – Traditions and Customs of the Njovu
Clan
(b) she can be tested and treated for syphilis and other
sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS;
(c) she can be counselled and guided on primary
healthcare, motherhood, reproduction, HIV/AIDS and
other sexually transmitted diseases, family planning,
feeding and nutrition, and immunisation against killer-
diseases;
(d) she can be tested and treated for syphilis and other
sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS;
(e) she can get medication for prevention of malaria; and
(d) she can obtain prescription for iron and vitamin
deficiency.
It should be stressed that it is the common practice at
present for the pregnant woman to adopt both traditional
safety measures and to receive a combination of both
traditional and modern ante-natal care. This is indicative of
the strength of African beliefs which cannot easily be done
away with.
The Birth
Traditionally, the pregnant woman delivers her baby at her
home, or at her parents’ home. Some women feel more
secure to give birth at their parents’ homes.
Whether the birth takes place at her home or at the home of
her parents, the woman delivers the baby in a banana
plantation among her own people. She is aided by a
traditional midwife who has been her chief helper and
confidant during the pregnancy (mulerwa). The main role
of the midwife is to ensure a safe delivery and the safety of
the mother and baby.
The expectant mother is also surrounded by elderly women
who have had long experience of delivering births, caring
for new mothers and babies immediately after birth, and
keeping confidential information about the birth, e.g.
anomalies of birth. When she is in labour, they prepare the
birth site, and prepare a fireplace on which they boil water
and various herbs and medicines for the mother and the on-
coming baby.
The midwife and these women assist the expectant mother
in her labour pains. They all have their toughest moment
when the baby is arriving: they labour at all cost to save
both mother and baby.
By tradition, men, including the father of the baby, are not
allowed anywhere near the site of birth.
The banana plantation where the baby is born symbolises
fertility and continuity on the part of the mother. The
banana plantation has special importance to the Muganda.
Many of the Kiganda practices, beliefs, ceremonies and
festivities are connected with the banana plantation
-53- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
(olusuku).
Immediately on arrival, the baby has to give its first cry.
Normally, an implement, such as a hoe, is sounded to call
for response from the baby. Where no such instrument is
available, the baby is held head up and legs down. The
baby normally responds by uttering a sharp cry. The cry is a
sign that the baby is alive and is getting familiarised with
the new surroundings and to the new world outside the
womb.
While the midwife is busy helping the mother to regain her
strength and posture, the baby goes from hand to hand
among the elderly women to check the baby’s physical
status. In particular, they establish whether the baby is
deformed or lame or is otherwise abnormal. This shows that
a child in Buganda is not an individual property but
everyone’s responsibility.
The elderly women remove the placenta from the baby. The
placenta, which is regarded by the Baganda as the second
child, is buried and thus stored permanently (okufugika) on
the banana tree as a symbol of fertility and blessing for both
the mother and baby. The placenta of a baby boy is buried
in the soil surrounding a beer banana tree (ekitooke
ky’embidde); while that of a girl is buried in the soil
surrounding a food banana tree called Nnakitembe. The
beer banana is regarded as the “male” banana; while
Nnakitembe is regarded as the “female” banana.
The Baganda believe that actually two babies are born: the
human child who is brought home; and the other one who
remains at the labour site, i.e. the placenta stored in the
banana plantation where the birth takes place. They also
believe that at death the human child joins the other child
who was left in the banana plantation and that they become
one once again in the soil as they were in the womb.
The Baganda also believe that the baby represented by the
placenta does live on as a spirit, and that he/she dies in
human form as the human baby is entering this world so
that the human baby who has been receiving nourishment
from it (the placenta) may live.
The umbilical cord is left on the baby until it peels of
marking the end of the period of confinement for both
mother and baby. The peeled part (akalira) is kept in the
safest place. Negligence on the part of the mother reflects a
lot about her character.
Next, the elderly women wash the baby with traditional
local herbs which are known to invigorate the baby, to
prevent infection and to combat evil. This step is taken to
protect and safeguard the new-born baby from harm which
can be caused by illness and evil-minded people. It is also
taken to ensure a bright future for the baby.
Continued on page 54
Continued from page 53 – Traditions and Customs of the Njovu
Clan
This can be regarded as today’s immunisation against
dangerous diseases and other related evils that hinder the
proper growth of the child.
Then, the mother is led into the house by the elderly women
and she moves into confinement. The women prepare the
place of confinement (akaali) for her and the baby. It is a
curtained part of the sitting room or lounge.
There is once again great joy when a child is born. The
news of the arrival of the baby travels fast, and quite soon
relatives and well-wishers come with gifts to congratulate
the mother and to praise God for the blessing. After the
birth, the mother is accorded greater respect and honour by
her husband’s relatives. The gifts given indicate the
beginning of life and property ownership, from a world of
nothingness to a world of property of ownership (the
material world).
The arrival of the baby has great significance. It is the final
seal to the marriage because once a child is born, the
marriage is complete. The mother is now fully integrated
into her husband’s family and kinship line or circle.
Furthermore, there is now a new member of the clan and of
the Baganda community at large. This causes great joy and
satisfaction.
The mother and baby immediately after birth
Traditionally, the mother is given herbs to enable her to
suckle the baby successfully and to protect her from evil-
minded and jealous people who can cause her misery. Some
of the herbs are intended to increase her supply of breast
milk so that the baby becomes strong and healthy, and to
increase the child’s level of resistance to disease and evil.
She is also provided with certain healing and life-giving
herbs and foods to enable her have a good recovery from
the arduous task of producing a baby (okumukulisa
okuwona olutalo lw’okuzaala). She bathes in a cocktail of
herbs and local medicines to make her strong once again,
and to prepare her for bearing another child.
Old women prepare a bath consisting of mixture of
traditional herbs (ekyoogero) in which the baby is bathed
for the next two years. The baby is given some of this
mixture to drink. This herbal cocktail serves the dual
purpose of protecting and safeguarding the baby so that it
has a bright future in which it will not be attacked by
disease; in which it will not suffer from misfortune,
witchcraft and sorcery; a future in which it will enjoy good
fortune, happiness, longevity, prosperity and wisdom.
Medication in Buganda is a continuous process, as seen
above. The moment a woman expects a baby, herbal
medication is administered and this continues until when
-54- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
the child is born and even after in all other proceeding
events in his/her life.
Following the birth of a baby, both mother and baby
remain in confinement inside the house until the
umbilical cord peels off and dries. Where the baby is a
boy, the period of confinement is three days; but where
the baby is a girl it is for four days. It is believed that
the baby born is normally stronger than the baby girl;
so his period of confinement is shorter.
The period of confinement is intended to give time to
the mother to rest and recover, and to make her first
observations about the baby. It is also intended to give
time to the baby to get familiar to its new environment
outside the womb as it begins its long journey in life.
It is usual to hold a small thanks-giving ceremony at
the end the rest period where a gathering of relatives,
friends and neighbours are invited to welcome the new
baby and congratulate the mother. It is the custom to
give the baby and mother gifts. It is also usual for the
father-in-law to give the mother a goat as a token of
appreciation for her role in enhancing the family and
the clan. The goat is slaughtered and its blood creates a
permanent bond between the child, the mother, the
clan, and the earth.
The ceremony has a lot of significance and meaning.
The mother is rewarded for proving to be profitable by
bearing a child to the clan and society. The child is
initiated into the community. The values of
communicating, sharing, giving and receiving, and
rejoicing for birth are promoted through the meal that is
prepared and served for the occasion. Society is given
the opportunity to receive both the mother and child
when they come out into the open after seclusion.
There is a renewal of the life of the community with a
new rhythm for everyone around marking the birth of a
baby.
The umbilical cord
After the birth of a baby, the umbilical cord is dried up
and kept with great care by the mother until the baby-
naming and confirmation ceremony and festival. Loss
or poor custody of the umbilical cord signifies extreme
negligence and carelessness on the part of the mother.
She is therefore put to great task to explain the loss or
damage. The common saying: “okyekuuma ng’akalira
k’omwaana”=”you protect the thing cautiously like the
baby’s umbilical cord”, reflects the great care with
which a mother is expected to exercise with regard to
the umbilical cord.
Resumption of normal life
After about three months, the mother can resume sexual
Continued on page 55
Continued from page 54 – Traditions and Customs of the
Njovu Clan
relations with her husband. This resumption of sexual
activity by the child’s parents is the subject of a ritual
called: “okumala ekizadde”, which is roughly translated
as “completion of the birth”. The husband rewards his
wife with a new beautiful bark-cloth to signify the end of
the life where the wife was under pregnancy and to mark
the beginning a new life with a new member of the
household. The resumption is a symbol of change and
renewal for both husband and wife. Behind this
resumption is the hope and wish that the woman, who has
proved her worth by producing a baby, will continue to
bear more children for the household and for the clan and
society.
Modern Changes
Nowadays, many babies are born under modern
conditions in maternity wards of health facilities, such as
health centres and hospitals; and this practice is on the
increase as many people live in urban centres and depend
more on modern health services.
During the birth, both the mother and baby are attended
to by a trained midwife and other specialist personnel,
such as gynaecologists and paediatricians. These health
personnel are there to ensure a safe delivery and the
safety of the mother and the child. The mother is well
prepared for the delivery as she would normally already
have attended ante-natal clinical sessions during her
pregnancy.
The father of the baby is rarely allowed to be present
inside the labour ward when his wife is delivering their
baby. But there are those who advocate for the presence
of the husband in the labour ward to share the pain and
experience of giving birth.
The placenta is often disposed of by health staff soon
after delivery and is therefore not buried in the banana
plantation, thus separating and alienating the two babies.
However, some women carry the placenta home and
dispose of it in the traditional manner.
It is believed that a child whose placenta was not treated
in the traditional manner grows into an abnormally
unruly, wild, anti-social, violent and unstable being. This
shows the strength of the traditions and beliefs of the
Baganda which they protect. No Muganda wishes to be
the parent of a child whose behaviour is unbecoming.
Some educated mothers do not take care to preserve the
umbilical cord. But, quite a large number of mothers who
give birth under modern conditions keep the umbilical
cord. Apparently, the children of mothers who do not
preserve their umbilical cords do not undergo the
traditional baby naming ceremony.
-55- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
After the arrival of the baby under modern conditions,
the mother is given medication to ensure her a safe
recovery and safety against possible post-natal
infections. The baby receives medication against
infections; and is immunised against the six killer
diseases, namely, polio, tuberculosis, measles,
diphtheria, whooping cough, and tetanus. Before being
discharged from the health facility, the new mother is
counselled about feeding and nutrition for herself and
the baby, and is given a programme for post-natal care
and further immunisation of the baby against the killer
diseases. When discharged, the new mother goes to her
home with the baby and both may, if conditions allow,
remain in seclusion for a period of time as per tradition.
Many of the traditional birth practices are still in place,
although under modified form to suit prevailing modern
conditions. The majority of mothers combine both
traditional and modern practices after the birth of their
babies. They still use ekyoogero (the traditional bath of
the baby) and the traditional herbal medicines. They
still go into confinement after delivery. They still
carefully preserve the umbilical cord where the family
still does the traditional naming of its children. All
these instances show the strength and durability of
African traditions.
However, many birth customs and traditions face the
threat of extinction. Many educated or “saved” mothers
(balokole), particularly those who live in urban
communities, do not wish to be subjected to practices
which they consider primitive or pagan. One
explanation for this attitude is that many of these
women have not been brought up in traditional
environments. They are therefore largely ignorant about
the essence or meaning of these customs and traditions.
Additionally, many, if not all, of these women have
been brought up in a universal religious environment in
which African customs and traditions are not only
despised and abused, but also condemned and wished
extinction.
http://njovu.org/traditions_customs.htm
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Continued on page 34 – More Women Die Giving
Birth in Hoima
Broken down, tis translates into one woman dying of
birth-related complications for every day of the week
while only one dies weekly in other regions.
The report, the Annual Health Sector Performance,
states that there are many more who die in smaller
health centres and homes and not just in the hospital.
☻☻☻☻☻☻
Continued from page 29 - UN Worries its Troops caused
Cholera in Haiti
University microbiology chair. "I don't see there is any
way to avoid the conclusion that an unfortunate and
presumably accidental introduction of the organism
occurred."
Rumors spreading
Haiti runs on rumors, like a 10 million-player game of
broken telephone. Last year it was the local woman said
to have given birth to a fish. This year it was cholera —
all too true, even if the news came from the same places:
in a group taxi, from a cousin, from the guy on the next
farm over.
On Oct. 20, the news crackled over Haitian radio: 19
people had died after fever, vomiting and severe diarrhea
at a hospital in St. Marc near the mouth of the Artibonite
River. Most were children.
A day later, the disease was confirmed to be cholera.
Tele-djol — "the mouth channel" — lit up. Some said
helicopters had dropped a black powder in the river, or
that they heard poison was poured into a dam in the
Dominican Republic. Others said the epidemic was
linked to the Nepalese base.
The rumors were easy to ignore. Mulet said the U.N. did
not address them right away because it did not know the
situation would turn into a crisis.
"It was such a minor thing, like we have every day,"
Mulet said. "We didn't know this was going to be an
epidemic."
But the rumors got stronger in the mouths of politicians.
Even the health minister, whose government depends on
the U.N. for protection, told the nation it was suffering
from an "imported disease."
On Oct. 26, U.N. spokesman Vincenzo Pugliese put out a
short statement saying that the base's septic tanks are
built to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards,
that the waste is dumped 820 feet (250 meters) from the
river, and that the U.N. unit for environmental
compliance periodically checks waste management.
Sanitation at the base is handled by a private company,
Sanco Enterprises SA, which won the contract over the
summer by underbidding a rival. The U.N. said the septic
tanks were to be emptied once a week.
But when the AP visited on Oct. 27, a tank was clearly
overflowing. The back of the base smelled like a toilet
had exploded. Reeking, dark liquid flowed out of a
broken pipe, toward the river, from next to what the
soldiers said were latrines. U.N. military police were
-56- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
taking samples in clear jars with sky-blue U.N. lids,
clearly horrified.
At the shovel-dug waste pits across the street sat
yellow-brown pools of feces where ducks and pigs
swam in the overflow. The path to the river ran straight
downhill.
The U.N. acknowledged the black fluid was overflow
from the base, but said it contained kitchen and shower
waste, not excrement.
The U.N. said it is up to the private contractor and local
mayor to ensure its dump sites are safe. Sanco Vice
President Marguerite Jean-Louis said it is up to the
mayor and the U.N. Mirebalais Mayor Laguerre
Lochard, who is running for Senate on Sunday, said he
complained several times to the U.N. that the site was
not safe but never received a response.
Jean-Louis said her company emptied the septic tanks
on Oct. 11, after the first shift of Nepalese troops
arrived, and did not return again until after the outbreak
began. At some point in mid-October, neighbors said a
new Sanco driver they did not recognize came one day
and dumped outside of the usual pits.
Sanco returned to the base after the AP had been there
for hours. There was more waste than usual, Jean-Louis
said, possibly because the soldiers overlapped during
their rotations.
Following protests at the base days later, the U.N.
opened the compound to the AP. The Nepalese soldiers
acknowledged, after repeated questions and revised
statements, that the base had undergone an extensive
clean-up and that they had replaced the broken pipe.
Aboveground pipes from uphill latrines ran over a
drainage canal to the river. The U.N. spokesman
acknowledged what looked like human waste at the
bottom.
The U.N. is now reviewing all sanitation systems at its
military, police and civilian installations, officials told
the AP this week.
The U.N. said none of the Nepalese soldiers had shown
signs of cholera, which some news outlets misreported
as saying the soldiers had specifically tested negative
for it. Pugliese confirmed on Oct. 30 that they had not
been tested for the disease.
The U.N. also tested environmental samples the
soldiers took from the base. It says they came out
negative at an independent laboratory in Santo
Domingo.
But the Santo Domingo lab, Cedimat, has been under
Continued on page 57
Continued from page 56 – UN Worries its Troops caused
Cholera in Haiti
contract to MINUSTAH, the U.N. mission's name in
French, since 2004, said Dr. Maximo Rodriguez, the
doctor whose name appears on the tests. Rodriguez is a
general medicine doctor whose specialty is treating
obesity. Cedimat is a patient-treatment facility. In fact,
the test results were written on forms meant for people:
The results provided to the AP by the U.N. had the
"patient's" name listed as "Minustha Minustha (sic)" —
age 40, male.
Rodriguez said "any well-equipped laboratory" can do
tests for cholera. But epidemiologists say examining
environmental samples for cholera takes extra expertise,
because the disease can be hard to isolate.
"A positive test is informative, a negative test doesn't
really prove anything," said Dr. Arthur Reingold,
chairman of Global Public Health and Infectious Diseases
at the University of California-Berkeley School of Public
Health. He is an adviser to the World Health
Organization and a former CDC epidemiologist.
Tricky situation
The idea that cholera was imported to Haiti by the U.N.
carries unique implications.
For decades, and especially since the Jan. 12 earthquake,
Haiti has depended on foreign governments, aid groups
and the U.N. for everything from rebuilding to basic
services. The U.N. has had five peacekeeping missions in
Haiti since 1993, the current one arriving six years ago.
Some Haitians see the peacekeepers as the only hope for
security in a nation where towns are ruled by drug lords
and coups d'etat are more common than elections. Others
resent heavily armed foreign armies on their soil and see
the soldiers as a threat to national sovereignty and pride.
The peacekeepers have saved lives in floods and defeated
kidnapping gangs. They have also killed people in
protests and accidents and had an entire unit dismissed
for paying for sex, many with underage Haitian girls.
Earlier this month, Dr. Paul Farmer, who founded the
medical aid group Partners in Health and is U.N. deputy
special envoy for Haiti, called for an aggressive
investigation into the source of the cholera, saying the
refusal to look into the matter publicly was "politics to
me, not science."
The CDC acknowledges politics played a role in how the
investigation unfolded.
"We're going to be really cautious about the Nepal thing
because it's a politically sensitive issue for our partners in
Haiti,"said CDC commander Dr. Scott Dowell.
-57- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
The CDC agrees that the movement of pathogens from
one part of the world to another is an important public
health issue. Its scientists are working on samples of
bacteria from 13 infected Haitians to sequence the
cholera strain's genome, the results of which will be
posted on a public database.
But the U.S. government agency has several caveats.
First, it has not taken environmental samples or tested
the Nepalese soldiers. Second, it will not go public with
its analysis until all its studies are complete. And third,
it may not get enough information to say exactly how
cholera got into the country.
"The bottom line is we may never know," Dowell said.
The WHO has repeatedly said the same.
"At some time we will do further investigation, but it's
not a priority right now," WHO spokeswoman Fadela
Chaib said this week.
But Mulet now says Farmer was right all along, and
that he is consulting with experts, including a French
epidemiologist who met with him this week to discuss
how to investigate the Nepalese base.
"We agree with him there has to be a thorough
investigation of how it came, how it happened and how
it spread. ... There's no differences there with Dr. Paul
Farmer at all."
As recently as Nov. 10, the mission's spokesman told
Haitian reporters that the U.N. was not undertaking any
other investigations because the concerns were not
"well-founded." The head of the mission said that is not
the case today.
"One thing I can assure you: There has been no cover
up — there has been no cover up from our side — and
we have done everything we can to investigate," Mulet
said. "Eventually we will find out what happened and
how it happened."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40280944/ns/health/
☻☻☻☻☻☻
The World Health Report 2003
About 90% of all HIV/AIDS and malaria
deaths in children in developing countries
occur in sub-Saharan Africa, where 23%
of the world’s births and 42% of the
world’s child deaths are observed.
☻☻☻☻☻☻
 Mission Statement
Our aim at The African Traditional Herbal
Research Clinic is to propagate and promote the
awareness in Afrikan peoples at home and abroad of
their health, biodiversity, history and cultural
richness. We gather pertinent information on these
issues and disseminate these freely to our people in
Uganda, the rest of the continent, and anywhere in
the Diaspora where Afrikans are located…. One of
the main ingredients for increasing poverty, sickness,
exploitation and domination is ignorance of one's
self, and the environment in which we live.
Knowledge is power and the forces that control our
lives don't want to lose control, so they won't stop at
anything to keep certain knowledge from the people.
Therefore, we are expecting a fight and opposition to
our mission. However, we will endeavor to carry
forward this work in grace and perfect ways.
“Where there is no God, there is no culture.
Where there is no culture, there is no
indigenous knowledge. Where there is no
indigenous knowledge, there is no history.
Where there is no history, there is no science
or technology. The existing nature is made
by our past. Let us protect and conserve our
indigenous knowledge.”
CALENDAR OF EVENTS
SPECIAL EVENT: CLINIC OPENING
PLACE: AFRIKAN TRADITIONAL HERBAL RESEARCH CLINIC
TIME:
Afrikan Traditional Herbal Research Clinic
54 Muwafu Road, P.O. Box 29974
Ntinda, Kampala, Uganda East Africa
Phone: +256 (0) 782 917 902
Email: clinic@blackherbals.com
ADDRESS CORRECTION REQUESTED
-58- Traditional African Clinic December 2010
Herb of the Month
Herbal Conceptives and Abortifacients
Abrus precatorius (Abrus) Momordica Charantia
Herbal contraceptives and abortifacients are those plants
used for birth control or in the prevention of pregnancy and
for premature expulsion of a foetus from the womb. Many
plants have been reported to have sterilizing, contraceptive
and abortifacient properties. Plants that have contraceptive
and abortifacient properties may act through rapid
expulsion of the fertilized ova from the fallopian tube,
inhibition of implantation due to a disturbance in oestrogen
- progesterone balance, foetal abortion, perhaps due to lack
of supply of nutrients to the uterus and the embryo, and also
on the male side through affecting sperm count, motility
and viability. In Nigeria, some women prefer this
alternative means of birth control as it constitutes little or
no side effects when compared to the synthetic
contraceptives and other abortion pills. Because of a
number of reasons, patronage of traditional medicine
practitioners (TMPs) by the people has been on the increase
in the recent times. People patronize them for a wide range
of ailments which they claim are cured by herbs. The herbal
preparations or recipes are formulated by traditional healers
who have enviably great knowledge of medicinal herbs,
though many, if not all, do not know the active properties
or toxicological effects of these herbs.
Continued on page 34
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