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05.06.2012 Feature Article

The Real Hunger Games: Why Ghana Should Be Concerned About Nodding Disease

The Real Hunger Games: Why Ghana Should Be Concerned About Nodding Disease
05.06.2012 LISTEN

There is this famous saying that when America sneezes that the rest of the world catches a financial cold. The same can also be said about Africa. That when Africa finds an incurable disease, the rest of the world often catches that same cold. Therefore we should perhaps be concerned about a relatively unknown disease that is ravaging parts of Africa called nodding disease.

In the north of Uganda, thousands of children have fallen ill with a fatal, incurable disease known as nodding disease. Communities are starting to panic and some people are losing hope as the medical community struggles to either find a cause or a cure. One mother whose two children have the debilitating disease, Betty Olana said “I've lost hope. I'm just taking care of Sarah and Moses like flowers in the home knowing they are of no use in the future."

Characteristics of nodding disease
The disease is named nodding disease because victims are often overcome with pathological nodding seizures. It is a recent, little-known disease which emerged in Sudan in the 1960s. It is also a fatal, mentally and physically disabling disease that only affects children, typically between the ages of 5 and 15 and is currently restricted to small regions in South Sudan, Tanzania, and northern Uganda.

What is baffling local and international scientific and medical experts about nodding disease is that it only affects children, typically between the ages of 5 and 15 in remote war torn areas in Africa and symptoms of the disease present themselves with seizures which often starts when the children begins to eat local foods, or sometimes when they feel cold. These seizures are brief and stop when the children stop eating or when they feel warm again. A curious feature is that no seizures occur when victims are given an unfamiliar food; for example, a chocolate bar. Because the disease is puzzling to doctors, they are helpless to do much except ease the discomfort of excessive nodding (which affects a child's ability to eat properly, leading to malnourishment and further debility).

Nodding disease is thought to be debilitating both physically and mentally and leaves the victim in an almost zombie like state. In 2004, Peter Spencer stated "It is, by all reports, a progressive disorder and a fatal disorder, perhaps with a duration of about three years or more." While a few children are said to have recovered from it, many have died from the illness. When children are affected by it, their growth is stunted completely and permanently. The growth of the brain is also stunted, leading to mental retardation of the affected individual.

Although scientists have no reason to suppose that nodding disease will spread beyond the Yeri River, there are those who issue that as a qualified and cautious caveat since no one has forgotten the dismal lack of attention to a certain West African fatal illness called “slim disease” received when it was first observed in the late 1970s to early 1980s. Slim disease was the beginnings of what is now infamously known as AIDS.

How the disease affects children
Nodding disease is believed to be connected to infestations of the parasitic worm called Onchocerca volvulus, which is prevalent in all outbreak areas. This worm is carried by the black fly and causes river blindness. In 2004 most children suffering from nodding disease lived close to the Yeri River, a hotbed for river blindness, and 93.7% of nodding disease sufferers were found to harbour the parasite — a far higher percentage than in children without the disease.

The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating a possible connection with wartime chemical exposure and whether a deficiency in vitamin B6 (pyridoxine) could be a cause, noting the seizures of pyridoxine-dependent epilepsy and this common deficiency in disease sufferers. Older theories include a 2002 toxicology report that postulated a connection with tainted monkey meat, as well as the eating of agricultural seeds provided by relief agencies that were covered in toxic chemical

Nodding disease has the hallmarks of a biological agent

However nodding disease has unusual features include being limited to age, region, and temperature, ineffectiveness when a child is given unfamiliar food such as a chocolate bar and automatic seizures and uncontrollable nodding when a child is giving food they are familiar with. This is particularly alarming when one realizes that nodding disease has most of the characteristics of a biological agent that is seemingly being tested for effect. A biological agent is typically defined as a bacterium, virus, prion, or fungus that can be used purposefully as a biological weapon. Biological agents have the ability to adversely affect human health in a variety of ways, ranging from relatively mild allergic reactions to serious medical conditions, including death. Many of these organisms are widespread in the natural environment where they are found in water, soil, plants, or animals. Modification may enhance their incapacitating or lethal properties, or render them incapable of being affected to conventional treatments or preventives. Furthermore the characteristics of a biological agent includes an incubation period; transmissibility; lethality; and stability. Given that nodding disease also appears to render vaccines ineffective; confers resistance to therapeutically useful antibiotics or antiviral agents; likely to have been spread from an animal in the natural environment; enables the evasion of detection tools; and the disease appears to enable the weaponisation of a biological agent, the actual hallmarks of nodding disease is alarming to say the least.

As scientists are looking for a cause or cure in remote regions in Northern Uganda, what therefore perhaps cannot be overlooked is the possibility that a biological weapon is indeed been tested that is limited to age, region, temperature and seizures are triggered by eating familiar foods in the region.

Given that biological weapons are further defined as any infectious agent or any toxins or poisons derived from biological sources used with intent to kill or incapacitate humans, animals or plants as an act of war, it may not be too much of a stretch of the imagination to suggestion that this disease may be some kind of controlled scientific test to see the effect of such a biological agent in a natural environment particularly when one analysis the unique and debilitating hallmarks of the disease and its effects, ravaging children of a certain age group in war torn remote areas in Africa.

Given that nodding disease also only occurs in such areas as South Sudan, Tanzania and Northern Uganda, these areas are if one were to look at the situation crudely, some of best areas in the world to test the actual effects of a biological agent in a controlled environment. Afterall, how much in depth international scientific inquiry would be made about remote war torn areas. Furthermore, the effect of the disease could be quietly monitored without much fanfare in order to study the effect of the agent for possible refinement and large scale implementation in the future.

If nodding disease is a biological agent that is being tested, why is it being tested on innocent children?

If nodding disease is indeed a biological agent that is being tested in remote African areas, the rationale for embarking on such a project could very well be to eventually further on a large scale an effective global de-population agenda, especially when one looks at the rapid rate at which the world population is growing with not enough resources to meet global needs long term. For instance in 1999 the world population stood at 6 billion people and by 2011 the United Nations Population fund estimates that we are currently 7 billion people on the planet. Therefore experimenting on how to limit a population by region, group, age, climate and number of years of survival, which appear to be some of the unnatural hallmarks we are seeing in nodding disease, could in the long term allow for a more refined biological agent being developed on a large scale to truly curtail the world's population. A biological weapon aimed at decimating the supposed “useless eaters” of the Third World. Afterall as Dr. Henry Kissinger said in a National Security Memorandum (NSSM 200) which was de-classified in 1990 and lodged in the US National Archives “De-population should be the highest priority of US foreign policy towards the Third World.” The memo went on to state that “Reduction of the rate of population in these States is a matter of vital US national security…as the US economy will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad, especially from less developed countries.”

Although it is by no means being suggested that the U.S is in any way involved and at this stage it is unknown which country and agency may indeed be developing a biological agent by testing its effects on unsuspecting children in remote war torn African regions, we should not discount the possibility that nodding disease could truly be a biological agent since scientists as we have recently discovered are very creative when deciding on the hallmarks and effect of a biological agent. As was discovered in 1994 when the Wright Laboratory in Ohio produced a three-page proposal on a variety of possible nonlethal chemical weapons; the possibility was canvassed that a strong aphrodisiac could be dropped on enemy troops, ideally one which would also cause "homosexual behavior" essentially by discharging female sex hormones over enemy forces in order to make them sexually attracted to each other, distracting them from fighting against an enemy.

Lest we also not forget that in 1970, the Department of Defence applied to the Senate appropriations committee for funding to research and develop a biological weapon that would attack the human immune system. The request was for the development of “synthetic biological agents.” In giving testimony to the Senate committee, Dr. Donald MacArthur, a US Army biological warfare expert, stated “Within the next 5 to 10 years, it would probably be possible to make a new infective micro-organism which could differ in certain important aspects from any known disease-causing organisms.” Dr. MacArthur then added “Most important of these is that it might be refractory to the immunological and therapeutic processes upon which we depend to maintain our relative freedom from infectious diseases.” He concluded that a feasibility research programme to this end “could be completed in approximately 5 years at a cost of $10 million.” The requested sum was granted.

Conclusion
So as nodding disease continues to baffle international and local scientists and doctors as they look for a cause or cure, let us watch with keen interest where and how this disease develops. Especially as its hallmarks truly suggest that a long term global de-populisation agenda is being furthered with the testing of a possible biological agent whose overall effects may be so devastating that the global H.I.V pandemic will pale in comparison. Let us therefore look closer to our African shores to monitor nodding disease and ensure that the disease does not come near Ghana given its devastating and incurable effects.

Amanda Clinton is a Barrister and Pastor on Vibe 91.9 fm where she hosts a daily Bible based inspirational programme called OUR FATHER'S HOUSE from 5.45am to 6.30am Monday to Friday and from 9.00am to 12 midday on Sundays. Find out more about her ministry at ourfathershouseworldwide.org. Amanda's more recent articles are available at amandaclinton.com

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