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PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
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Category: Politics
Posted on: July 17, 2007 10:32 PM, by PZ Myers
It's not as good as we might have hoped — it was commuted to a life sentence, rather than expulsion from Libya — but at least they aren't going to be executed. Effect Measure has the story.
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Comments
The hope is that the commutation to life sentence will carry with it extradition to Bulgaria, where they can at last be freed. But it hasn't happened yet and this is a complicated situation fraught with danger.
Posted by: revere | July 17, 2007 11:08 PM
Are the money winners all celebrating tonight?
Happy to have made millions by letting those people rot in jail for eight years?
Sickening.
Posted by: CalGeorge | July 17, 2007 11:19 PM
Don't forget that in Africa, according to Christian missionaries it is the use of condoms that leads to HIV. Yay for Caucasian Jesus.
Posted by: Tom at Thoughtsic.com | July 17, 2007 11:28 PM
I missed this issue obviously; I have been treading water trying to catch up and find out. All I can find is that there is genetic evidence of innocence, but there must be more (not more concrete, but more expansive?). Why were the authorities so quick to defame these workers and not other avenues?
Been shaded up here in the north of Canada for a while...a link would be great.
Posted by: Monkey | July 17, 2007 11:53 PM
I'm pleased to see an outcome that looks as if it will spare the lives of the 6, but I'm still furious every time I read anything about this story. It's just one more example where ignorant people with power corrupt the system and ignore solid scientific evidence that contradicts them.
We live in a very sad world.
OEJ
Posted by: One Eyed Jack | July 18, 2007 12:14 AM
Monkey, the gist of it is that the AIDS infection started spreading before they arrived and continued spreading after they left. This was first found by checking the medical records of the hospital by several independent sources and later confirmed through genetic analysis. The particular strain involved is a particularly virulent hybrid strain found in West Africa (there are apparently immigrants from there in Libya), and there are no markers for genetic engineering. They were even able to trace the infection back to a single individual who visited the hospital a number of times, and apparently even to a particular group of visits. The physical evidence, the tools that they supposedly used to infect the people with HIV, is all conveniently missing.
Posted by: TheBlackCat | July 18, 2007 12:57 AM
@monkey
As for why authorities were so quick: Quite simply, admitting the true reason would mean admitting bad hygiene, which would mean that all is not as fine in Lybia as the great Ghaddafi tells his subjects. So to prevent the ire of the families targetting Ghaddafi, it was directed at foreigners, thereby giving Lybia a bargaining position to generate some profit even for the leadership.
Posted by: Oliver | July 18, 2007 8:25 AM
I'm confident they'll be released eventually, but I'm sure there's a lot more behind the scenes diplomatic maneuvering before that happens. At least this stops the clock and allows that to happen.
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | July 18, 2007 8:29 AM
But this stops the clock in more ways than one.
I too am confident that they will be released eventually, but more time in that dungeon? And when other children get "deliberately infected" by other victims (because Libya isn't going to clean up its medical act with all that money). I've gone from total depression to hope plus dark cynicism about all this.
Posted by: Kristine | July 18, 2007 10:14 AM
Dark cynicism is always thoroughly justified about the ways in which sovereign states deal with one another (and the individuals who are caught in the middle). Even when it doesn't involve horrific loony bins like Libya, it's never pretty.
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | July 18, 2007 12:42 PM