For years, the World Health Organization and other NGOs have used the U.N. as the end all authority on global HIV/AIDS infection estimates.  And while AIDS is a terrible affliction, basing funding and policy decisions across the planet based on faulty information is disturbing at best.  From the Washington Post today:

The United Nations’ top AIDS scientists plan to acknowledge this week that they have long overestimated both the size and the course of the epidemic, which they now believe has been slowing for nearly a decade, according to U.N. documents prepared for the announcement. The United Nations’ AIDS agency, led by Belgian scientist Peter Piot since its founding in 1995, has been a major advocate for increasing spending to combat the epidemic. Over the past decade, global spending on AIDS has grown by a factor of 30, reaching as much as $10 billion a year. Piot often wrote personal prefaces to those (U.N.) reports warning of the dangers of inaction, saying in 2006 that “the pandemic and its toll are outstripping the worst predictions.”
But by then, several years’ worth of newer, more accurate studies already offered substantial evidence that the agency’s tools for measuring and predicting the course of the epidemic were flawed
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On the heels of the Oil For Food scandals and the horrendous UN straw resolutions against Iraq during the 90s, the news media still accepts the UN Scientists claims on Global Warming.  Clearly, the AIDS numbers were affected by the personal and political leanings of its scientist Peter Piot.  Overstating truths and abandoning accuracy is an aspect of operation at which the UN has become quite adept. Let us imagine the following:

The United Nations’ top (Global Warming) scientists plan to acknowledge this week that they have long overestimated both the size and the course of (Climate Change), which they now believe has been slowing for nearly a decade, according to U.N. documents prepared for the announcement. The (IPCC), led by (a team of UN scientists) since its founding in 1995, has been a major advocate for increasing spending to combat (climate change). Over the past decade, global spending on (climate change) has grown by a factor of 30, reaching as much as $10 billion a year. (UN scientists) often wrote personal prefaces to those (U.N.) reports warning of the dangers of inaction, saying in 2006 that “the pandemic and its toll are outstripping the worst predictions.” But by then, several years’ worth of newer, more accurate studies already offered substantial evidence that the agency’s tools for measuring and predicting the course of the epidemic were flawed.

It isn’t hard to do, sadly.