I want to commend my fellow nairalanders on their comments, I'm feeling really proud to be a member of this forum, I'm really happy that there has been no insults on my person or on any other person who commented, this issue is really a di cey one, and I and I believe most of u would like to get to the root of this matter, pls keep your opinions coming, they are all appreciated, and to the nairalander who posted the story of one abalaka, pls we would like to know more about the story, I hope this case does'nt go down that road, personally, I've not made up my mind on what to believe, all I know is that there's something not right about this whole issue, pls keep your comments coming, thanks y'all

He didn't lie. The research was just not quite finished and he was excited by the promising results he was getting on the field so he made a premature statement before the research had ended. If you are familiar with scientific research you know there are certain procedures to follow before arriving at logical conclusions. He also broke university protocol by going to the press unilaterally without clearance and the school examining his research properly. He apologized to save his job. I believe he has a promising drug and should be encouraged.

lain: He is not the first person to say the cure to aids has been discovered.. We re living in a very dangerous world, do u want those pharmacetical companies that produce hiv pills to close down, or do u want the billions of dollars that goes to hiv research every year to end or those companies producing condoms to close down... thereby creating more unemployed pple.. This world is business and everything must b done to make sure that business continues

Seconded.Thats the truth.Billions of dollars are involved here.

I believe he has the cure but the world does not want the cure so that condoms would sell... And some other reasons best known to them

It's either the conspiracy theories are true or the science community has failed woefully;either way,it ain't good news. The western world seems not to hv much appetite for an HIV/AIDS cure. It's not really a big deal for them anymore, they seem to be "managing" their situation just fine. It's Africans whom the disease is ravaging. Most of d new cases and HIV-related deaths are in Africa or the black community. Am sure if the roles were reversed, we wld be much closer to a cure. I think more money is spent on cancer research than even HIV/AIDS; it's more of a big deal to them. Same goes for malaria,why havent they found a malaria vaccine? The bottom-line is nothing gets serious attention until white folks start losing their lives enmasse. E.g gun violence has bn a serious issue in the US for quite a while. Black kids are gunned down daily in the Chicago southside. It's only when a few white kids are killed that d issue becomes news and finally gets the Attention of the politicians; now everyone is screaming gun control. Obama only waded into the Trayvor Martin case as an election year stunt.

"Follow due process", Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) tells Uniben lecturer.
http://www.punchng.com/news/follow-due-process-ASUU-tells-uniben-lecturer/


National Agency for the Control of Aids (NACA) boss says confirmation of AIDS cure could take 20 years.
http://leadership.ng/nga/articles/44754/2013/01/11/naca_boss_says_confirmation_hiv_and_aids_cure_can_take_20_years.html

This world we live in is complex. Some of us are not privy to the "behind the scene action". For now, I wish the Prof good luck in His finding if it is true.
.
On another note, is this not part of the conspiracy theory that "can anything good come out of Africa?" waiting to see what becomes of this claim and not to be silenced like that of Dr. Abalaka.

Honestly, I do not know what to believe anymore. It is possible that U.S. and some advanced countries made that virus to curb world population. If you look at projections of world population right now, it is quite scary. If food production doesn't increase dramatically, there will be serious hunger around 2040. Guess what two continents you will target if you are trying to curb population. Yep, you got it. I MAY BE WRONG but I don't trust the world powers.

This is 9ja nw, pls think my people. It truth that d prof found solution to HIV AND AIDS problem bt where do u want UNCEF and other organisation that do aids program to money, where they collect billions of dollars. Come think of it, America hv annouce that dey got solution, who be 9ja. So the prof hv be given millions or billions to denial is proffesion. I believe nigeria hv d drug to cure decease.

tem_tem: Two things are likely;
Publicity stunt by Prof Ibeh
or
they actually found something, and were excited to make hasty announcements....
The fact is that on daily bases thousands of molecules are screened for therapeutic potency, only very few make it to the final stage of approval for use in humans and even at that stage its the duty of the regulatory agency to make the announcement.
So, the conspiracy theory is unlikely. Prof and his team errred in making such public claims, at best what they should have done is to present their research findings in a scentific conference to relevant stake holders and HIV specialists.

Why is this person not getting 100likes?

gabe: He didn't lie. The research was just not quite finished and he was excited by the promising results he was getting on the field so he made a premature statement before the research had ended. If you are familiar with scientific research you know there are certain procedures to follow before arriving at logical conclusions. He also broke university protocol by going to the press unilaterally without clearance and the school examining his research properly. He apologized to save his job. I believe he has a promising drug and should be encouraged.

Damn, you made absolute sense too, you must be a very inteligent person!

Nobody doubts the fact that HIV/AIDS spins off a multi-billion dollar industry in which the players won't want to end soon.
But what I found disturbing is why an academic of such standing will call a press conference of uninformed journalists (sorry to Nigerian Press, you guys don't read) to declare such discoveries.
What happened to peer-research conferences, scientific journals etc. Those are the only avenue where your scientific discoveries can be properly scrutinized by fellow professionals and all claims properly verified before being thrown to the regular press.
Whether he was threatened to recant or he realised his folly, he brought the shame upon himself.
I really want to see a Nigerian research scientist make such a discovery in a dully documented process instead of this charlatan-inspired announcement we get from time to time.
Dr Abalaka, Prof Ibeh...who's next?

cecegorz/ezme,

I applaud you both for refusing to dress mutton up as lamb.
Going by some of the opinions expressed here, I suppose someone must have mislaid my copy of the memo which states that "professors are no longer fallible members of the human specie".

What's with the blind solidarity that compels 'rational minds' to suspend reason for conjecture?
Why are some members of the Nairaland commentariat ever so content with the celebration of ineptitude?

I really tire for this kind thinking no be small.

My earlier comments on a different thread ...


Having devoted a bit of time to due diligence on this "discovery", I am also of the view that Professor Isaiah Ibeh's approach amounts to a disappointment given his scholastic pedigree.

What makes this claim even less impressive and the UNIBEN disclaimer timely is the absence of any credible peer review.

Mr. Ibeh, a professor, said his team “took our finding to the United States” of America and was reviewed by other international Toxicologists.

At a time when most observers are concerned about the poor ratings of our universities, I find it particularly worrying that a tenured professor attends a conference held by a little known publishing group, without a particularly good track record, and then heads straight to the press with claims of a "miracle cure".

This falls way below the standards expected folks, so let's not dress it up as what is clearly isn't!

OMICS Publishing Group is a publisher of approximately 200 open access journals in a number of academic fields. It has offices in Los Angeles (United States), Hyderabad (India), and Henderson (Nevada, United States). It is part of the Hyderabad-based OMICS Group,[1] which also has another branch, OMICS Group Conferences, which organizes scientific conferences.[2] The group started its first open-access journal, the Journal of Proteomics & Bioinformatics, in 2008. [3]

Some observers have described the publisher as "predatory", insofar as authors who have submitted papers have been sent invoices after their manuscripts were accepted for publication despite the lack of a robust peer-review process, leading critics to assert that the main purpose of the publisher is commercial rather than academic.[4][5]

-- Source

In my own opinion a serious discovery was made by the prof.the only problem was how he went ahead publicising without going through the right process.the truth would soon be known.lets watchout

After pondering on this issue, I discovered that there are different angles to this whole drama, one of them is this, it's possible that the original idea to the cure was stolen by the professor and his team, and when it got to some technical issues surrounding the research, he and his team could not solve them because the idea was'nt theirs originally, so they were forced to retract their earlier statements, I'm saying this because I have seen this happen at ubth, a friend of mine shared some ideas with a consultant and in the next couple of weeks I saw the consultant announcing on vanguard that he was on the verge of a scientific breakthrough, but all in all, there's still something fishy about this whole debacle,

MAYOWAAK: Something similar to this might have happened:

Some 12 years ago the Vanguard broke the news of Dr Abalaka’s cure for HIV/AIDS. Immediately the Nigerian intelligentsia and educated elite, a band of cynics, claimed it was no cure; Abalaka, they insisted, was a babalawo, not an educated man – his name suggested it. Quickly, Abalaka was on the TV showing his University of Jos MBBS certificate. They argued, that Abalaka was a doctor didn’t mean he should also involve in medical research; there was a rule to this thing. Again, Abalaka brought another certificate of his PG trainings in one-thing-one-thing. They insisted Abalaka must show prove of whom he had cured. A Nigerian colonel said it was true – 400 of his men back from ECOMOG in Liberia have been cured....

And I suppose the conspiracy theorists are leaving nothing to chance this time

Recently launched website dedicated to the promotion of DX-Liquid

I just hope we don't begin to experience a needless loss of lives as a result of claims that fail to meet the standards expected within the scientific community.

eGuerrilla:

And I suppose the conspiracy theorists are leaving nothing to chance this time

Recently launched website dedicated to the promotion of DX-Liquid

I just hope we don't begin to experience a needless loss of lives as a result of claims that fail to meet the standards expected within the scientific community.

from your link, I understood that the professor seemed to have gathered sufficient data, to make the initial announcement he did, but the question still remains, if he was so sure as to put his neck on the line for something so unconventional, and make that kind of announcement, then why the change of mind all of a sudden, this whole thing just keeps getting weirder and weirder, and it seems we might not really know the truth behind this whole story,

That Prof. is as good as Prft. T.B. Joshua and co! Greediness (a typical Nigerian ailment!) is disturbing him. If he discorverd something, what actualy happened to publications in journals such as Nature and co (as some people here had suggested), what happened to patent law?
Yes discorvery like this could be hijacked, therefore he needs to seek adivice of a lawyer on how to protect his effort.

cogitoErgo: That Prof. is as good as Prft. T.B. Joshua and co! Greediness (a typical Nigerian ailment!) is disturbing him. If he discorverd something, what actualy happened to publications in journals such as Nature and co (as some people here had suggested), what happened to patent law?
Yes discorvery like this could be hijacked, therefore he needs to seek adivice of a lawyer on how to protect his effort.

so what do u think happened? Does he really have the cure to aids or was he misleading the public?

tem_tem: Two things are likely;
Publicity stunt by Prof Ibeh
or
they actually found something, and were excited to make hasty announcements....
The fact is that on daily bases thousands of molecules are screened for therapeutic potency, only very few make it to the final stage of approval for use in humans and even at that stage its the duty of the regulatory agency to make the announcement.
So, the conspiracy theory is unlikely. Prof and his team errred in making such public claims, at best what they should have done is to present their research findings in a scentific conference to relevant stake holders and HIV specialists.

I dont really have the full details but i believe the so called prof was wrong to have given a press conference concerning a discovery of such nature. There are laid down guidelines and there are also issues of ethics.
You publish your findings in peer review journals or present your findings at scientific conferences.
Many of our so called academics behave just like semi illiterates , they publish scientific papers and write funny text with many sections taken from existing books without acknowledgement and brings money bags to launch the book.
Very funny indeed.
No wander a committee set up by NUC found out that only about 30 PhD publications around the country were fit for advanced publication into a book after considering 1000s of theses.
I cant just imagine an academic going to press to announce a discovery, where are the ethics that guides researches
Where are the Abalakas and the Abdullahis who made headlines years ago, where are their so called cured patients, dead? after paying huge sum of money.

Are we ever going to know the truth behind this story?