The relationship between Europe and Africa, between the rich west and the poor south, and between those who have and those who have not, has dominated recent weeks. It takes many forms. The vicious and triumphalist terminology employed by the Sunday Independent columnist Mary Ellen Synon is an example. The rich, in her world-view, are better and more worthy than the poor. And that seems to apply to individuals, to communities, to ethnic groups and to countries alike. Poor? You deserve what you get.

But Synon is not alone. Indeed, many who would disagree with her themselves exhibit ambiguity and double-thought. Some just don t see the connections. For example, western geologists, scientists, loggers and privateers are pillaging the rain forests of South America, Africa and Asia.
They re looking for oil, diamonds, timber, unknown species of plant with curative powers, perhaps even a cure for cancer. Some are waging war. They are doing so, despite the clear evidence that destroying these forests contributes to global warming and regional flooding, and also loses many species that might potentially contribute to general well-being through medicine.
There s now a strong body of scientific opinion that holds that, in trying to find a vaccine for polio (noble intent) and using monkey tissue towards that end, they generated AIDS, which jumped species from the monkeys (ignoble outcome). They may also be responsible for disturbing the Ebola virus, which had slumbered away in Zaire until 1975. Whatever, our needs have led to their distress.
Ebola is a movie star. The kind of horror disease that prophets dream of. It was first identified in 1976 on borders of Zaire/Sudan when 270 died. Another 245 died in 1995 in Zaire, which was when most of us first heard of it. The latest outbreak is in Uganda. At the last count, there were 37 dead, and 75 cases in all.
It s a demon seed. It enters the body through saliva, body fluids or blood, commonly via re-used syringes. Ebola infects the liver, kidneys and blood vessels and destroys the inner coat of cells. Blood vessels become porous and organs disintegrate. There is a fatality rate of 90%. And they ve pretty much all been in Africa.
The same broad pattern can be seen with BSE. Lord Phillips has just reported on the disease in the UK. He is scathing on the Tory Governments and public servants. Much deserved anger has been generated. It concerns the ineptitude and confusion, and the secret deals, cover-ups and compromises, almost always in the industry s interest, not the consumer s.
But if anything could be worse than the catalogue of roguery and incompetence, this is it Britain offloaded tens of thousands of tons of potentially infected feed on the Third World after deciding it was too dangerous to feed to UK herds! Not okay for us, but okay for Ghana!! Can you believe it?!? Typical!!!
But wait!! There s more!! It s not over yet!! It has now emerged, according to the Observer (October 29th) that potentially lethal BSE-infected waste is leaking into the environment from the carcasses of infected animals. The paper also found that BSE-infected ash is escaping from incinerators burning slaughtered cattle as well as dumps storing mountains of carcasses.
Similar concerns have emerged in Co. Galway over the burial of a carcass of a BSE-infected cow near the source of four group-water supply schemes and 15 other wells. Locals discovered the infected animal had been buried in the east Galway area they dug it up and returned it to the owner s farmyard.
Look: 551 animals that died of BSE are buried in Ireland. So too are 600 more, suspected of having the disease. It would be a foolish person who thought that assurances by the Irish authorities were necessarily more reliable than those previously given by their counterparts in the UK.
There will be maximum guardage. There will be evasion. The industry will be protected before the consumers. And, remembering previous tribunals, who can say someone wouldn t try to export embarrassing contaminants to Africa?

We re on a roll now, so let s take another example, again from the Observer, and this time from October 15th in which Robin McKie describes how scientists are now able to grow human brain cells in the laboratory. They have isolated neurones from several key areas of the cortex and plan to transplant them into patients suffering from epilepsy and strokes as well as Parkinson s and Alzheimer s diseases.
How do they do it? They immortalise brain cells in culture dishes, Neurones are bathed in chemicals that switches on a gene that keeps the cells dividing indefinitely . The isolated cells come from various parts of the brain. When neurones die in these areas, they produce Huntingdon s disease, Alzheimer s, strokes and epilepsy, and Parkinson s disease. The new approach replaces the dead cells with the cultured ones.
Previously, this had been achieved using neurones from aborted foetuses. (Phew!). But now they can grow them, more or less, in petri-dishes. Dr. George Foster of Cardiff University says that they could satisfy the demands of every Parkinson s patient in Europe and the US with cells grown in one small laboratory.
Ah yes. Europe and the US. Indeed. But what about Africa?
The Hog